enuff

I found my sensuality between the cushions of my couch
Along with a quarter, a dime, a penny
Some cookie crumbs,
and a black HotWheels Firebird with flames on its hood…

I found it at 3am, eyes half-closed
A rerun of 8 Mile on Starz

I brushed my hand against it while lying on the couch

And it wasn’t in the whisper of some sepia toned brother
Vocalizing his amazement at the deliciousness
Of my damp milk-chocolate colored skin lit only by candlelight,
Or by my eyes, and his informing me
“…they’re not black, but a pretty dark brown”
as he stares into their bottomless depths

I didn’t find it in the open-mouthed gawk of my best male friend’s
Sudden epiphany
“your lips are perfectly shaped just like a heart”
on my rare pink-lipsticked occasion

I thought I’d given it away to someone
Who never deserved it
And I, never to regain it
Some nameless faceless Other
Who would sporadically drop by to
Sate my hunger with some cotton candy and a pixie stix
Leaving me to wonder whether he’d ever give it back

Whether I could find in a bouquet of wildflowers
he gave me on my birthday
(he knows I hate roses)
or whether after sweaty episodes
he’d leave it on my nightstand

I found my beauty
In the soft caress of my own eyelashes
against my own cheek
tender forearm brush against breast
pad of index finger stroking the nape of my own neck
and realized

I was cute, before I knew what cute was
Beautiful before I knew what true beauty is
Before I knew what boys where
Before I knew that I lived in a culture that would eventually confirm
That I’m not “enuff”
Not
Thin enuff
Light enuff
Long-haired enuff
Even-toned-skin enuff
Butt not round enuff
Muscles not toned enuff
Nails not long enuff
Heels not high enuff
Not tall enuff
Not short enuff
Not soft enuff
Hair not straight enuff
Hooch enuff
Prim enuff
Vulnerable enuff
Complacent enuff
Feminine enuff
Acquiescent enuff
Just not enuff

And when I realized it, again
I hardly recognized it
it had been so long
Since I saw it
My beauty, my sensuality, my sexuality
I didn’t know how to even reclaim it
Other than to say
Enuff is enuff
And pull it out from between the cushions

© 2004 Sagacious Media