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I see these men not as men / but as terrorists in training
camouflaged bombers on / the ground floor of truth

 

 

Forced Entry

By  Ekere Tallie

He broke into me
stole something
a brazen thief
never charged with forced entry
because "Please don't" didn't lead
to blue black marks on the lock
and no one sees the bruise prints
the scratch marks on my spirit
these don't make police reports
the dignity missing from my step
doesn't qualify as physical evidence
I shake when I see him
only my homegirls seem to notice
their golden light, protective around me
his boys' mantra is "lying bitch"
they mutter it with sharp machete eyes,
occasionally someone rouses himself to say it-
"Lying bitch"
the words weigh down the wings of airborne birds
and for the first time
I see these men not as men
but as terrorists in training
camouflaged bombers on
the ground floor of truth
taking dynamite to its foundation.
I see myself as a prisoner of war
an exile
a survivor
I wish this wasn't my story
but it is
a million times over
and just when I think it has gone away
it reappears at my doorstep
in another woman's face
or on the ten o'clock news
and although I have loved men since
maybe another sister can't
so this is our story
and it will be ours
until we don't have to claim it anymore
until women from Brooklyn to Oakland to South Africa
can sit back in amazement and say
"I can't believe such things ever occurred,"
until the word "rape"
can be wiped out from vocabularies
removed from the dictionary
stamped out of our memories
until then, this will be our story
and wounded eyes will tell it
even when we don't

*   *   *   *   *

 

 
 
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie is a poet, writer and journalist.  Her poetry and fiction have been published in several journals in the United States, France and South Africa including: Bomb Long Shot, Paris/Atlantic, Drumvoices Revue, Carapace. Her works have been anthologized in Listen Up! (One World/Ballantine) and Catch The Fire!!! (Penguin/ Putnam) Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Random House), Role Call (Third World Press). Ms. Tallie is Contributing Writer for African Voices literary magazine where she has worked since 1995. Ms. Tallie performs her poetry regularly and has been a featured reader at the De Nachten Festivals in Holland and Belgium, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Brooklyn Moon Cafe, Rutgers University, Hunter College, Barnes and Noble, Bryant Park, Mills College, Brooklyn Public library. She has collaborated with dancers and musicians, most notably for the "Jazz and the Spoken Word "segment of the Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, with Mingus Amungus in California and Words and Waistbeads Womans Collective in New York City. Ms Tallie also worked with Gerard Gaskin and Caroline Poon for an exhibition of words, photography and pottery titled "The Experiment." In 1999 Ms. Tallie was awarded a residency at Fundacion Valparaiso in Almeria, Spain. She has work forthcoming in Beyond The Frontier, (Black Classic Press), The Body Eclectic (Henry Holt) and The Book of Hope (Beyond Borders). 

Education

    Master of Fine Arts English/Creative Writing Mills College, Dec 2001
    Ploughshares International Writing Seminar Kasteel Well, Netherlands Emerson College, 1998
    Bachelor of Arts, Mass Communication Clark Atlanta University, 1996

    "Love is a story that we never stop telling" Veronique Tadjo

     http://www.ekeretallie.com

 

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