Laila Asberry

Grade: 10

Cleveland School Of Science & Med

Instructor: Cynthia Dalveren

To Build a Better Black Woman

Poetry

To Build a Better Black Woman

I want to
assemble a
black woman.

In an automated factory.
Her kind will be mass produced by the trillion.
It's hard to know.

Whether I shall start from her regal head, or war-torn feet.
It's hard to know how to start the formula of success.
Whether we will make her a war veteran, with scars and battles
and something to fight for. or whether we make her soft, elastic
and bendable to our will.

One after the other, they will be mechanically crafted with a
flawed blueprint. Rigged in our favor,
strong or weak? that is the question, isn't it?

The science behind her must be studied.
Because fabricating a soul is not easy.
Especially building it to be broken.
Maybe, she will be built with
interchangeable parts.
So when one breaks, another will replace her.

All creations are created for convenience.
But she will be an upgrade; a subservient model
or a heavy-hearted fighter.
Nothing but a lab rat trapped behind a glass. Nothing more than an expensive toy.
She must be created. And it must be done carefully.

Not with her weaponized disobedience.
Don't add a willful mind, with needs, or thoughts, or wants.
Not with anything human.

They are nothing, if not creations.
They will fall apart in the wrong hands.
Insurance.

It would cost us a lot to tear her apart,
and craft her in our image.
So we will wear gloves, and masks, to block out the toxins.
On a warm summer day by the river,
We will create a new specimen.

fragile, and easy to break.

But not in the same sense as glass.
But in the sense that it takes one time. And their structure is recomposed.
It is ready for heartbreak, and mistrust, and the evil of the world.
They evolve, because their permanent build is fragile.
It's amazing, really. A temporary blueprint.

Ever changing, always shaping. Always being built.
They are quick to break, but hard to fool twice.
I must create a better black woman.
One, that does not learn so easily.
Until the factory is broken,

I want to
assemble a
better
black woman.