For The Women – Colored, White; you’re all the same.

“For Colored Girls”, it made me cry.  Nonetheless, even mushy cartoons do that to me.  It wasn’t intended for colored women to be precise. 

 For me, it was for all the women out there.  For those who’s waking up in the middle of the night wondering alone.  For those who longed to have a perfect family.  For others who’s seeking that one thing that is missing in their life.  For women who wants to be love; who wants to have another pair of hands catching them whilst they’re falling, to be there to comfort them, to hold them close, watch them sleep, breathing the smell of someone they love – not a nurturing mother nor a respectful father, but a lover, a man.

It tells a few different stories of the women who lives in a neighborhood.  There’s a bartender with her sex addiction – sexing up with different, random men every night.  A personal assistant who’s living with her drunken boyfriend and raising 2 kids of their own.  A graduate high school girl who let herself knocked out by her boy and got pregnant.  A successful owner of a fashion magazine married with a closet gay. A nurse having a boyfriend back and forth contemplating himself over her or another woman. A child service worker who’s depressed coz she can’t be pregnant. A dance teacher who finally opens her heart in finding love… and found a stranger.

Throughout the movie, you will be saddened, frustrated and angry with some of those women.  For making bad decisions, for giving in too easy, for letting themselves being hurt again and again and for realizing things all too late.  You will say out loud in front of your monitor, “don’t take him back,” or “damn!” “fuck, no!”… Oh yeah, you will.  But at that very moment; bear in mind this one thing – have you done the same thing they did, one way or the other?  I have been in love, and I have been acting foolish at times.  I have. I have forgiven others and let myself being hurt.  I mostly let others to be happy than putting myself first.  Those women will have their stories of life to connect to you.  

I would love to tell the whole story to you, but it is better for you guys to watch it by yourself.  Maybe you’ll realize what you’ve been looking for this whole time.  Possibly it would be a mirror, a reflection of you.  Perhaps it would be tones of advices in your life’s journey.  I’ll leave you with this poem; in which has a great meaning to it.  An excerpt from the movie itself.

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff 
 
not my poems or a dance i gave up in the street
 
but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff

like a kleptomaniac workin hard 
& forgettin while stealin
 
this is mine/this aint yr stuff/
now why don’t you put me back 
& let me hang out in my own self

somebody almost walked off wit alla my stuff 
 
& didn’t care enuf to send a note home 
sayin 
i was late for my solo conversation
 
or two sizes to small for my own tacky skirts

what can anybody do wit somethin of no value on
a open market
did you getta dime for my things/
hey man/ where are you goin wid alla my stuff/

to ohh & ahh abt/ daddy

i gotta mainline number 
from my own shit
now wontcha put me back/ & let
 me play this duet
wit silver ring in my nose/
honest to god/
somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i didnt bring anythin but the kick 
& sway of it 
the perfect ass for my man 
& none of it is theirs 
this is mine/ ntozake ‘her own things’
that’s my name
 now give me my stuff
i see ya hidin my laugh & how i
s it wif my legs open sometimes
to give me 
some sunlight/ & there goes my love my toes my chewed 
up finger nails/ niggah
wif the curls in yr hair/
mr. louisiana hot link/

i want my stuff back/
my rhytums & my voice/ open my mouth
& let me talk ya 
outta/ throwin my shit in the sewar
this is some delicate 
leg & whimsical kiss
i gotta have to give to my choice/
without you runnin off wit alla my shit

now you cant have me less i give me away
& i waz
doin all that/ til ya run off on a good thing
who is this you left me wit/ some simple bitch 
widda bad attitude

i wants my things/
i want my arm wit the hot iron scar/ & my leg wit the
 flea bite
i want my calloused feet & quik language back
in my mouth
fried plantains/ pineapple pear juice/ 
sun-ra & joseph & jules
i want my own things/ how i lived them/
& give me my memories/ how i waz when i waz there
you cant have them or do nothin wit them/

stealin my shit from me/ dont make it yrs/ makes it stolen

somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff/ & i waz standin
 there/ lookin at myself
the whole time 
& it waznt a spirit took my stuff
waz a man whose 
ego walked round like Rodan’s shadow
waz a man faster
n my innocence
waz a lover

i made too much 
room for
almost run off wit alla my stuff/
& i didnt know i’d give it up so quik
& the one runnin wit it/
don’t know he got it/ & i’m shoutin this is mine
& he dont 
know he got it/ my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure
 of the year/

did you know somebody almost got away wit me/
me in a plastic bag under their arm
me 
danglin on a string of personal carelessness
i’m spattered wit
 mud & city rain/ & no i didnt get a chance to take a douche/

hey man/ this is not your perogative/ i gotta have me in my
 pocket
to get round like a good woman shd/ & make the poem
in the pot or the chicken in the dance
what i got to do/
i gotta get my stuff to do it to
why dont ya find yr own things/ & leave this package 
of me for my destiny

what ya got to get from me/
i’ll give it to ya/ yeh/ i’ll give it to ya/
round 5:00 in the winter
when the sky is blue-red/
& Dew City is gettin pressed
if it’s really my stuff/
ya gotta give it to me
if ya really want it/ i’m 
the only one/ can handle it


-ntozake shange. “For coloured girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf”