In Knee Length, poet and journalist Khalisa Rae navigates the nuances of an inherited conservative legacy. Pulling from memories of her religious upbringing and education, family history, and matrilineal teachings, Knee Length is a history reimagined and excavated—a rebellious relearning of desire and respectability, family and faith.

Being Beautiful Versus Being the Object of Desire 

My mom says I had curves and a sashay “that could stop traffic” at eleven or twelve. Puberty hit, my hips started to bulge, and my breasts grew in tandem with my awkwardness. Back then, I would have put Beyonce’s hourglass figure to shame. I was tall and curvy, fair-skinned with long, honey-colored braids. I was Destiny’s Child before Destiny’s Child and honey, could I work it. I’d throw together cute outfits: a red top and flared dark denim jeans, paired with an over-the-chest purse and matching shoes. A blue jean jacket with patches and pins, graphic tee, and matching backpack— a true ten fashionista. I had all the pieces of a confident girl. The recipe for self-esteem was there, but something was missing. Most of the time, I just felt like a giraffe in a sea of graceful swans. 

Part of it was that I didn’t look much like my sister or my mom. Back then, we were practically opposites. I was tall, fair, and slim-thick, while my mom and sister were brown and short, full-figured with matching round faces. I wanted so badly to feel connected to the legacy of our family matriarchs, but instead, my appearance made me feel distant. My mother begot her mother’s nose, lips, and body type, and my sister begot hers. I would look in the mirror, hoping to see the matriarchs alive in my face, too, but I couldn’t find them—only paternal features that muddied my reflection. 

At home, hiding was impossible; the investigation to discover where my hips and ever-expanding chest originated from made me feel more like a science experiment, and less like a beautiful girl. I’d smile and laugh, laying on the “operating table” being poked and prodded by older siblings, but inside, I’d recoil, uncomfortable with any and all scrutiny of my body. I was the oddball out, struggling to find my place and mine the beauty within. 

I was hypervisible at home, but invisible at school. You would think being one of the only curvy Black girls at a private, Christian middle school would make me stick out like a sore thumb, but instead, I faded into the backdrop among the swath of thin, white, blue-eyed classmates. I was no match for Ally, Ashley, or Alisa, the pampered, privileged, populars. And of course, the boy I had a crush on, Spencer, was into Ally, not me. At parties, I’d get dressed up in my cutest dress, sure that I would turn heads, and yet I remained invisible. Despite my efforts, I was still the awkward Black girl that ruined their perfect white atmosphere. 

Once, I was asked out on a date by a white boy. I showed up at the movies early, dressed in the cutest outfit I could put together. When Jessie finally showed up thirty minutes late, he told me he couldn’t date me because his parents disapproved. And we both knew what that meant— they disliked me because I was Black. I was devastated. 90’s fashion magazines and music videos already did enough damage to Black girls’ self-worth and conception of beauty, but being rejected for being Black further reinforced the belief I held that I’d never be beautiful enough to be wanted. 

When I arrived at high school a year later, I finally got my chance to sit with the popular crew. I looked around and measured my beauty against theirs—was my hair pressed out enough? Were my clothes fashionable enough, my makeup and accessories in line with the latest trends? I’d strut my stuff in maxi floral dresses and wedge heels and get invited to all the football and basketball parties. I was the epitome of every pretty Black girl you’d see on your favorite teen dramedy. Tia Mowry, Raven Simone, Lisa Bonet. I finally had it all— the popularity, the wardrobe, the look—but I still didn’t feel beautiful unless the most popular guy or beautiful friend was validating me. The guys I would get entangled with were always jerks, but I would buy into every empty compliment they threw my way. I would try to fill myself up with superficial praise, but I felt nothing on the inside. Much of high school passed struggling to unlearn the damage I had internalized during puberty. 

I’d go out with my mother and catch the stares of men my mother’s age; this quickly became a repeat occurrence. We couldn’t shop in peace anywhere without their toothy grins and wandering eyes running over my body. At one point, the unwanted attention grew so uncomfortable that my mother and I would leave restaurants or move seats to flee. 

“What are you looking at?” my mother would sometimes demand, angrily confronting them while they stood, dumbfounded. Men twice my age would hit on me and tell my mother she and I “looked like sisters” as a cringe-worthy pick-up line. At times, we’d smile and walk away. Other times, we’d fuss them out and send them packing. To cope, I’d wrap sweaters around my waist to keep them from looking and wear baggier clothes to hide my curves. I was swimming in shame and awkwardness. The only option was to try and hide.

My hair was too coiled, my skin too brown. Speech too cultured. Taste too flashy and flamboyant. I never fit in. It began to feel as if I lived in two worlds— one where my body was the object of unwanted desire, the other where I was painfully invisible. Both soured any chance at confidence I might have developed as a teen.

At church and school, we’d learn of women whose modesty was their armor—those who refrained from drawing attention to their hips and breasts. We learned of the two opposites: the Jezebel figure and the Virgin. Where did I fit in? When married men would stop and stare at me against my will, it was hard to stop myself from feeling ashamed, and harder still to not internalize their attention as my fault. When were men going to be held accountable for their leering? In spaces where I wanted to be seen, I wasn’t. In spaces I tried to hide, everyone could see me. When would I be given the space to feel beautiful without being ashamed of my body or rendered invisible? 

I grew tired. I had done enough hiding and covering up. I couldn’t go on like this. I had to own my sexuality and stop hiding in the shadows. Sunday School lessons never included the Song of Solomon’s praise of the female form. When I asked about it, my mother would evade the details. “That is a celebration of marriage. A letter from a husband to his wife,” she would explain. While that was partially true, Song of Solomon is also about celebrating a woman’s body. It helped me understand that my body is nothing to be ashamed of, but to be celebrated—that our bodies can and should be praised on our terms. I thought about the Garden of Eden and how Eve and Adam hid because they were ashamed of their nakedness. I began to long to be naked, but unabashedly so. To walk in the fullness of my inner and outer beauty. To affirm that my body did not exist for the male gaze. 

When I arrived at college, I began to feel more emboldened to exert autonomy over my body, beauty, and sexuality. As I grew older, I also grew more confident calling the objectification I received out. I spoke up and refused to allow what I was learning to cherish to be disparaged any longer. As I launched into adulthood, I learned that what I experienced as a child was a type of trauma and sadly, was not uncommon. As I began to expand my reading beyond the Bible, I learned by studying Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, and Maya Angelou that my stride and step were for me and me only. What I wore and how I displayed my body would never be an excuse to harass, assault, or abuse me. In college, women writers became my teachers, my spiritual guides as I worked to find and protect my beauty: Eve Insler, Gloria Steinem, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Alice Walker. They were my champions, my beacons as I embraced my unique voice and my self-worth. 

But perhaps most importantly, they guided me to the realization that there was no dichotomy—that my sexuality and beauty were not separate or distant from my spirituality. That intersection was at the heart of my healing. On my lifelong journey to heal and unlearn shame, I could be a beautiful, sexually empowered, and spiritual being, all at once. My conservative upbringing had led me to believe that beauty, sexuality, and spirituality were mutually exclusive when in fact, they were kin, constellating parts that made up who I was. I didn’t have to be separated from my spiritual self in order to feel beautiful and empowered. My connection to a higher power, my faith and my belief in goodness—that’s what made me beautiful most of all. 

In Knee Length, poet and journalist Khalisa Rae navigates the nuances of an inherited conservative legacy. Pulling from memories of her religious upbringing and education, family history, and matrilineal teachings, Knee Length is a history reimagined and excavated—a rebellious relearning of desire and respectability, family and faith.

“Oh, God” is a Testimony 

At twelve years old, I am sitting in church with my mother when suddenly, the wail of the pastor reaches a deep, gut-level, and a woman, overcome with emotion, throws her baby in the air like a wad of dollar bills at a strip club. Yes—she lobs her baby in the air as her arms fling open; we all stop and stare in awe. She is taken with the Spirit, and there’s nothing we can do but watch.

This particular Sunday the Spirit is higher, thicker than usual. The organ knows all the notes to sing to get us deep into our feelings. Each note is a punch in the stomach. All the pastor’s words about David and Goliath and overcoming insurmountable obstacles hit and tug on heartstrings that are barely held together with duct tape. The mothers and deaconesses sway and rock, fans in hand, arm raised to the heavens, crying a sorrowful hymnal. Moans, groans, and wails can be heard from every corner like surround sound, and all I can do is look around and soak all this worship and reverence in. The pastor says, “Now, now, you see. When he got ready to craft that slingshot and fight the giant, don’t you think he had doubt in his heart? Don’t you think his hands were shaking? His feet a little wobbly, saints?” Just then the organ hits a call and response note to play up the powerful part of the sermon—the part where the pastor knows he’s talking that shit and “going in.” He steps away from the pulpit to get closer to the crowd and grabs his mic to start screaming. Jerry curl juice dripping like the sweat flying from his forehead. The crowd shouts back, “Yeah!” “Amen!” “Go, ahead.” “Say that!”

The organ speeds up and just then, the woman—one-year-old baby on her hip—starts to jolt and jerk her body, like she’s convulsing. As the organ gets higher in pitch and faster in tempo, her back buckles and feet stomp. With baby in tow, her hands are moving so quickly now that the rest of her body can’t keep up. My eyes dart to her, mesmerized by her breasts that jostle and move carelessly as if they are dancing with her. They are adornments to the rhythm of her praise. I turn my head away from her for just a moment and turn back to see the baby flying mid-air, still swaddled in a blanket like a football baby Jesus. That’s right—her baby catapults through the air now like the pastor’s sweat or a wad of spit, and all our eyes follow his soar. The woman next to the baby’s mother watches dumbstruck but reacts just before the baby hits the ground, catching him in her arms like a wide receiver. But the dancing woman is unphased and utterly entranced by the Holy Ghost—by the feeling of deep overwhelm from a spiritual appearance. 

I believe our ancestors danced like this. Shook their bottoms and hips and jolted like they were possessed by some otherworldly, magical sensation. But the root wasn’t anything of rituals and sacrifice; it was a dance of celebration. Being overcome with emotion like David. The Bible says David danced out of his clothes, and I know now that this is meant literally. When the Spirit moves through your body, and the chord of the keyboard hits a note that stirs your soul, your shoulders have no choice but to Harlem shake. Your knees can do nothing else but drop low, your butt has to twerk; it’s innate in you. It’s innate to praise the heavens in a full-body dance.

This Sunday, we are all transfixed watching her celebratory burst of energy and wailing cry. Her legs hopping like she is walking across a bed of hot coals. Her feet stepping on each note the organ played. And the pastor, her father, egging her on. Slow and methodical, he screeches each word. “Welllllll, when the Lord moves, so does the Spirit. So move, my sistah.” he urges. With each phrase, she lets out a moan that makes my skin flush pink. Goosebumps coat my forearms and shoulders and I fix my eyes on her hips. Her breast and full legs jiggle to the rhythm of Gloryyyyy. Glorrry to God. Yes, yes, yes, God. Praising God with guttural glory. A full body outburst where arms fling open and the head drops back, eyes close, and feet jump. 

This is what I imagine sex to be. 

Later, in the car, I ask my mother to explain what happened. I was still a bit mortified by the sight of a baby flying mid-air like a football. 

“Why would she do that?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” my mother begins, “you become so overcome with the Spirit that your mind and body get disconnected, ya know?”

“Like you’re in a trance…” I nod slowly.

“Yeah. Think about a time when the pastor has said something that resonated with you on a spiritual level. You lose all thought or control. Your spirit just feels everything, and wants to cry or move.” 

 “But the baby…”

“She didn’t know what she was doing, sweetheart. The baby is fine.”

“But what if the woman hadn’t—”

“Trust, baby girl. The Spirit was high in that place. The baby was covered with holy protection.” 

 I nodded, knowing my mother was right, but I still couldn’t imagine feeling so out of control that your mind doesn’t know what your body is doing.

“There’s a special warmth and fullness that overtakes you sometimes,” my mother added.

So much of what my mother said reminded me of women in the movies. The woman’s moans mimicked the love scenes my mom always made me close my eyes for. Two bodies pressed together, with only the warmth of their breath filling the silent spaces. Every time, I would peek through my hands to see what it was my mother was hiding, and every time, a couple was lip-locked on the screen, overcome with emotion. Their cheeks grew flush. Their bodies convulsed and squirmed as if they were possessed. But it was always the woman who would cry out, “Oh God.” And I wondered, are these the same things? Was the woman in the movie taken by the Spirit just like the woman in church?

Was she yelling out in that passionate moment to thank God for all He had done? Was this pleasure or spirituality, or both? What’s the difference between her connection to a man and her connection to God? I just didn’t understand. What were these men doing on screen that made women sweat the way I watched the woman in church sweat and pass out after? I remember how limp her body became, how she could no longer move her limbs. People fanned her and brought water and towels. 

Maybe this was how a good orgasm felt: a spiritual experience that made your mind and body disconnect. Honestly, it sounded pretty nice to lose control and blame it on the Spirit. To be wrapped in a funk-filled perfume with no fear of consequences. Those strange noises I heard in church sounded just like a woman having a good orgasm, so maybe that too was a way of talking to God, of thanking him for the out-of-body experience she had as she climaxed. Despite all the scenes my mother tried to shield me from, I was beginning to understand that there were countless ways women could feel the Spirit: being overcome with passion. Praising, dancing, grinding, worshipping. Lovemaking. It was all the same freedom, the same head-back connection to something greater. Maybe that’s what my mother was afraid of me seeing— what happens when you relinquish control and just get free. 

In Knee Length, poet and journalist Khalisa Rae navigates the nuances of an inherited conservative legacy. Pulling from memories of her religious upbringing and education, family history, and matrilineal teachings, Knee Length is a history reimagined and excavated—a rebellious relearning of desire and respectability, family and faith.

Howling at the Moon

I’m not going to say I hate hair, I just didn’t like the way it looked on me. When I turned twelve, I would stare at my bushy underarms and legs for days on end and seethe. Then I’d turn on Sister, Sister, The Cosby Show, Boy Meets World, A Different World, and grow green with envy. I was certain that Denise, Whitley, Tia, Tamara, and Topanga had smooth, sensual legs. Hair made me feel wild and untamed like I was morphing into a werewolf. And at twelve, I had no interest in howling at the moon. Plus, it was itchy and made me feel utterly unsexy, underneath my clothes or otherwise. 

A part of me also wanted to be like Ella Fitzgerald in “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” smoking a cigarette in long gloves, a petticoat, side-tilted hat, and pin curls, with some man in a three-piece suit, bow-tie, and slicked-back hair eyeing me from across the smoky club. There was no way Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Portier, or Nat King Cole would sneak a hairy-legged broad like me into the back seat of his Model T Ford. 

But these are things you can’t tell your mother at twelve, so you stick to the script. For me, it was the prickly pine feeling and itchy stubble coming through the porous holes of my nylon stockings that were so irritating. Plus, I was sure the boys in school could see my hair poking through and talked about me in the locker rooms. I’m certain “wolf girl” was my colloquial nickname. My mom would have to care about me being called “wolf,” right? That I was the laughing stock? Don’t even get me started on gym class. The sheer mortification of wearing shorts during kickball when my legs looked like Carl Winslow’s chest hair.  No one would ever ask me to a school dance with taco meat saying, “hello, stranger” through my tanks tops and shorts. I was like the pretty-faced girl that seems attractive until she reveals she’s got a black, feral squirrel living under her arms and on her bean-pole legs. 

Most of my life was spent wearing plaid button-up uniforms and church dresses in stockings, so hairy arms and legs in tights were embarrassing. If I had to be stuck in knee-length uniforms and long church dresses, the least I could do was have smooth underarms and legs. Smooth legs were the sure-fire way to still be somewhat alluring like Britney Spears in “Oops, I Did It Again.” She definitely wasn’t hairy anywhere. 

Honestly, I really just loved the idea of freshly shaven legs—rubbing their sleekness against the sheets, running my hands up and down to feel the stumble-free, buttery surface. At night in the bathroom, I’d prop myself up on the toilet, one leg on the tub basin edge, and imagine shaving with Skintimate shaving cream in one hand and a pink Daisy razor in the other. I’d close my eyes, smile ear to ear, and feel sexy and grown-up like a pin-up model. It might have had something to do with all the black and white films and shows I used to watch—I Love Lucy and Casablanca— or maybe the fashion magazines that cluttered my room. Elle, Vogue, Seventeen, Marie Claire. Each cover featuring different smooth-bodied beauties whose legs had us religiously buying issues, millions of copies sold off those luscious limbs alone. Case in point, the 1996 swimsuit issue of Vogue featuring Cindy Crawford: though her perfectly perky breasts and devilish smirk allured me, what captivated me most were her legs that seemed to be a mile-long of silkiness. Her shaved legs seemed to be running off the page and I wanted to run with them. 

But being the 90’s kid I was, that defense would not hold up in the Christian court of my house. Parents at the time were all convinced that media and MTV were corrupting their kids, so the fashion magazine story had to stay a secret. So I stuck to more practical reasons to plead my case. Shaving was synonymous with puberty: get your period, wear a training bra, shave your legs. I watched boys shaving peach fuzz with their fathers on TV, and I yearned for the sacred experience of the “first shave.” That’s it, I thought, I’d tug on my mom’s heartstrings and maybe say something about gender inequality. 

I begged my mother every day for a year to be a part of this hair removal ritual.

“Please, momma. What if I just shaved a little patch?” I whined, trying to bargain with her. 

“You’ll have to deal with itchy prickles while you’re under my roof,” she said. 

“Why not, ma?” I pleaded. 

“Because you’re not ready for that. Let’s wait until you’re sixteen.”

My Bible-toting momma wasn’t having it. She was worried my silky sleekness would lead to desire, convinced that I wanted to be smooth for someone else’s touch. But truthfully, the sexiness I so longed for wasn’t for any boy, it was for me. To pluck and de-fluff every follicle would make me feel more like I was becoming a woman, and maybe that’s what she was afraid of. So I started to resent her. I’d mumble during movie nights, “See, she gets to shave. It’s not hurting anyone,” crossing my arms in frustration. 

My anger would fizzle out, and then spark up all over again when it was time to put my stockings back on during fall and winter. I blamed her for making me sit through judgmental gym class glances. Eventually, I became the only girl with hairy armpits and legs. “Does your mom let you shave?” I’d ask each of my classmates. And they’d always say yes. Most girls in class were shaving when they started their period. 

“Ugh. Mine won’t let me. I’m stuck being Tarzan until I’m sixteen,” I’d say. When I walked out onto the soccer field in shorts, the other girls would point and laugh. “Eww, she’s a fur baby.” Mortified, I would run home, hoping my mother would be sympathetic. 

“Mom! The girls in class are making fun of me. C’mon,” I begged at thirteen. “Can’t I shave my underarms at least?”

“That’s their problem. We don’t concern ourselves with what other people think.”

We? I thought. I didn’t know about we, but I most certainly did. 

Eventually, my mom caved, and we compromised around fifteen, the only caveat being that I’d have to foot the bill. Though she’d conceded, you know how they say be careful what you wish for? Keeping up the smooth appearance was exhausting. My mom didn’t warn me how quickly my hair would grow back. With my wonky, soon-to-be sixteen hormones, a shave only lasted a week tops. The shaving life was for the birds— razor bumps and itchy armpits. Spending my allowance money on shaving cream and disposable razors. My first time shaving, she took me to the drug store to get the coveted Nair wax kit. I’d been dying to do the hot wax and rip method I’d seen on Teen Vogue, and while she conceded, I could have sworn I saw a smirk. 

When we got home to the bathroom, I tore open the package, glossed the caramel-colored goop on my legs giving them a good slather, and waited. Then, I stuck the sticky strips to the hair, pressing down hard to make sure it got all of it. I would never be called “fur baby” or “wolf girl” again. 5-4-3-2-1, I counted down, staring at my mother with a crazed look, eyes wide, all but salivating at the anticipation that I was seconds away from becoming a hairless beauty. My mother stared back smiling, slowly backing up like she knew where the chips were going to fall. On ONE, I yanked the sticky strip, and let out noise so high-pitched it could only be heard by dogs and wild animals. 

“OUUUUCH!,” I yelped. “Owwww. Ahhhhhhhhh. Mom! Why did you let me get this?” 

 “Oh, no you don’t,” she laughed. “You begged and begged, whined and cried. This is what YOU wanted. Now live with the consequences,” she said, grabbing a cold rag to ease the pain. 

“So I have to do this again?” 

“Yeah, unless you want to walk around with mismatched legs.” She chuckled. 

Needless to say, my first waxing experience had such an impact on me that when I turned sixteen I decided to only shave when I had to. I’d get excited on shaving day, but the smooth bliss wore off with the appeal of being a “lady.” And what did that even mean? To sit properly with legs crossed at the ankles in Mary Jane shoes and ruffly socks? That was me. My life was plaid skirts and white button-ups. Lace and tea parties. Somewhere between rinsing our mouths out with soap after saying dirty words and getting paddled for hiking our skirts up above the knee, I grew bored with the daydream I once had of being the good little girl that followed the rules or was liked by all my classmates. The less I wanted to be the male-gaze version of Britney Spears or Dorothy Dandridge, the less I wanted to stay slippery and glossed.

And what was wrong with the rough edges? When I left private school, something cracked open. I saw girls in torn shirts and ripped jeans, expressing their individuality, and I wanted that. Who was I when I wasn’t in uniform? When I wasn’t performing what I thought femininity meant? To this day, I wonder if that had been my mom’s plan all along. To show me maturing is nothing like the movies and magazines make it out to be. To teach me how to howl at the moon. To embrace not just my wild lady bush, but who I was at my rawest—uninhibited and free. In the movies, they don’t show you the nicks, razor burn, and bumps after. They always leave out how actually, howling at the moon isn’t half bad. Plus, I kind of liked how my raspy howl sounded when I let her out. Nowadays, I go to my proverbial mountain and let her roam free. Life would later teach me that embracing my wild, untamed side would lead to sexual freedom, but how I arrived at that realization is a story for another day.

In Knee Length, poet and journalist Khalisa Rae navigates the nuances of an inherited conservative legacy. Pulling from memories of her religious upbringing and education, family history, and matrilineal teachings, Knee Length is a history reimagined and excavated—a rebellious relearning of desire and respectability, family and faith.

My Grandmother Never Spoke of Her Body

In my dream, she is under a man that knows about satisfaction and indulgence. A giver and pleaser—one that doesn’t hand over the chocolate, but rubs the morsel on your lips, leans his limbs down to the center of her mouth, and says, Here, take. In my dream, I came from pleasure, from men that believe the arch in her back was medicine for aging hands, that foreplay cures cataracts better than THC, and all good pipes burst when tapped at the right place. In my dream, she is body-embraced and thirsting for more. She is gushing, knows dying in ecstasy would be a sweet death, that anticipation is the realest form of feminism there is.

7:34 am:  My mother is texting about my grandmother again and how her mind is slipping. She says my grandmother has repeated the same incomprehensible thing after incomprehensible thing. She’s at the end. So, I force myself to remember her when she was young and free. I think about how much of the world I think she’s missed out on being the God-fearing matriarch. How much pressure and weight comes with carrying that title. So, I am creating a sort of revisionist history in hopes of finding freedom- from shame, trauma, repression, and so much useless baggage.

I want to remember her with her lover in flowy skirts, smoking cigarettes, and dancing in the juke joints. Grinding and having fun, because they never share that with you until it’s too late—until you’ve already made the horrible mistakes and fallen for the toxic boy who never called after you’ve had sex. After you let him get to second base before you were ready, after the girls made fun of your breasts for coming in at eleven and you tried to tape them down. You’d already covered your hips with sweaters because they started to expand and bow out at nine. They wait to tell you this doesn’t get easier with age. 

I have to believe my grandmother had desires once, too.  She flirted and fell in love. Had one-night stands. And even if she didn’t, I want to imagine she did. Recently my mother said my grandmother’s dementia is unearthing old telling stories of her youthful indiscretions and colorful past, and we can’t decipher whether they’re fact or fiction. Still, I’m enjoying this truth-telling and the signs that they gave over to their flesh. 

You grow up thinking the matriarchs are flawless- innocent— “good girls” without spot or blemish, and then at the end of their life, they share stories of making out at the drive-in movie, getting caught with someone’s husband, or letting Carl Jenkins go up her skirt, and for some reason, that sharing of desire and want makes you feel a type of kindred. While my grandmother probably would have taken these secrets to her grave had she not been drawing closer to the end, even the slightest inkling of openness and honesty about desire, the body, and sex is a relief. 

If you know anything about my writing and my poetry, you know I write a lot about growing up in a religious household. Still, more significant than what my mother taught me is the fact that I was born into a conservative legacy. Generations of women that were God-fearing, Bible totting, and chaste Christians that believed in modesty and waiting until marriage. 

Each morning my grandma rises

to find her Bible, still breathing, belting

her favorite aria. A lion,

a well, a sacrifice. Crack-of-dawn,

 coffee-stained, 

scrolls making music at 6 am.

 Each page turns a chord

she knows better than hot water cornbread

and collard greens. Wailing Blessed Assurance

But there are moments when I’d watch my mom and my grandmother dance, that I saw more—glimmers of uninhibited sensuality underneath their unyielding faith. I’ve always wanted to dive deeper into when they lost that. The sway of their hips, head back, eyes closed— the freedom. What were the things they were told about their sexual power and what did they pass down to me? Before we go there, let’s go back to when it began.  

We start with knee-length skirts. I was seven years old when I first put on the maroon and black uniform for Family Christina Academy and stepped on school grounds for the first time. I could feel the loss of individuality with the buttoning of each button on my jumper. My mom had scoured the phone book for elementary schools that were the farthest from where I lived in Gary, Indiana. In 1996, my mom had just accepted a position as a Social Worker in the Gary Public School System and wanted to give me the life she never had. At the time, Gary had received the notable title of being the “Murder Capital of the World,” and my mom was determined to shield me from the gunshots, pregnancy, drugs, and gang violence that was so rampant.  “I searched and searched for a school with access to an exceptional curriculum, highly rated teachers, technology, and opportunity to go far beyond this place,” she said. 

Like Rory Gilmore, I lived in two worlds. One in Gary, where amidst the violence, run-down buildings, and poverty, my home life was filled with choir practice, and show tunes, tree houses, secret handshakes, dancing, and acting out stories with my sibling and family in the living room. My other life was made of private school rules and restrictions, plaid uniforms and knee-length skirts, Bible verses, abstinence, and just say no. What I remember is learning to love the plaid jumper over time, the feel of the crisp white socks and white loafers. I felt intelligent and important. I knew going to private school was a big deal as a Black girl from Gary. “They have computers, technology, a great theater program, and lots of opportunities to learn about the world,” I remember my mom saying. 

But what intrigues me now is what I never learned about my body and how I existed in the world at the crucial time of puberty. Today, my mom reminded me that I was so “pretty” in middle school, and “everyone could see it.” She reminded me they called me “token Black girl.”  “You were special,” she said.  But like Rory, being just a pretty, sheltered girl left me with very little autonomy or agency. There were many elements of my identity I wish I’d embraced, so many mistakes I wish I could erase. All those missing pieces and scarce conversations had me fumbling through middle school like a slippery-handed wide receiver. 

It’s the things the matriarchs leave out. 

All the things never said. The “talk” before heading off to middle school left much to be desired. How I knew so little about boys and the way my body worked. 

When I talk to my mom now, she stresses that she gave me this wonderful life and that our home was filled with music, dancing, games, and fun. And while she’s right, there’s so much about my identity and body that was missing. She tells me to “reframe my thinking.”  Now I see the danger in the idyllic Stars Hollow life that at the time, I so longed for. As a kid, I thought I wanted to be the doe-eyed, protected girl with town holiday celebrations, picnics, diner gossip, and quirky townspeople. 

There’s a moment in Gilmore Girls where Rory yells at her mother and says, “Why did you tell me I could do anything and be anything? You didn’t prepare me.” And like Rory, there I was. With loads of book smarts and opportunity and little knowledge about want, desire, and consent. The funny sayings from the elder women in my family, the old wives’ tales, and myths about the body from my mother, things I later in life had to debunk, and misconceptions I carried for years. So, I’m going back, with the help of my mom, and uncovering what sage words of advice shaped what I know about sex, puberty, and my body. I’m imagining a new history, where I have access to all the hidden truths the matriarchs concealed.