Boundary Girl Speaks

ATTILLAH SPRINGER

There is a plant here.  In the countryside where there are no fences, you put this plant to mark the point where your land begins. Or ends. You are never told its Latin/proper/biological name. You do not know the name that the first people to come here called it. You do not know what it is called in any other island around here.

Boundary plant.

It is beautiful in its own tropical way.

The leaves are red. Or sometimes a deep purple. Like a blood stain or a bruise.

 We love to mark things here. A piece of Reckitts Crown Blue in a little white cloth bag pinned to the chest of a newborn to guard against maljo – the evil eye. A red flag on top of a new roof to appeal to the gods to keep it safe. A mirror at the entrance of a house so that if someone is entering with bad intentions, their negativity will reflect back to them.

 It’s easy to miss these things if you’re not deliberately looking for them. Like the boundary plant,  just there in the bush, standing out from the endless, impenetrable green.

The leaves are red like what you spit out after a man you’ve just made love to measures the distance from the hardest part of his fist to the line of your jaw and lands it with such precision that you see literal stars. The leaves are purple like your jaw on which you must use the last of your good expensive foundation so that you and him can go have lunch with your mother. She is always in search of signs that you are a failed woman. 

The boundary plant doesn’t have the spiky aggression of barbed wire in town. It is not modern looking. It is not a fancy metallic chain link that can rust or be quickly cut.

The boundary plant is not a mark of protection.

 It is just the land’s subtle reminder of who owns what.

 It’s easy to miss these things if you’re not deliberately looking for them.

One day a woman much older than you will point them out to you, in the course of pointing out many other plants. This woman who never went to school, can barely read, she knows things about life and love and survival that she delivers in short sharp doses. Open your eyes to what is there, she will say.

One day because you are becoming a woman and you are opening your eyes to what is there you will notice that your body is not yours. When you are eleven you observe that your body belongs to big people who are marking time to decide on whether you will be a blessing or a burden.

One day when you are eleven you start to notice these things. You start to see the boundary plant in the bush. You start to understand that certain things exist as reminders of your unowning.

One day you overhear that the breasts that you have barely noticed have become a cause of concern. That someone will trespass, will use you to bring shame on your family.

That you are eleven and are still wanting to bathe naked in the rain sets off alarm bells that you are too wild, that you are toying with indecency. She does not know that women are not allowed to do these things.

The woman who is older than your mother says: leave her, let her be a girl. Let her be what you never had, because we did not know better.

Your mother cannot let go of her fear. She cannot forget her own scars. She cannot unlive the brutality.

This is the first rite of passage that marks your unowning. This gives way to an endless list of things

You. Must. Not. Do.

If you do not return home straight after school, you will be damned.

If you do not deny the existence of a thing called a boy you will be damned.

If you stand up for yourself in the face of an adult making an unreasonable demand of you, you will be damned.

If you ask to do the same things your brothers do you will be damned.

If you do not allow your uncle (who has done this to all the other girls in your family) to watch you with his you with eyes bulging and make loud pronouncements about your mosquito bite sized breasts, you will not only be damned but you will damn the rest of us as well.

You learn nothing of the boundary plant at school. Not even in science class where you should be learning to make sense of the world.

Identifying boundary plants does not come on exams. Identifying signs of abuse is not on the curriculum. Learning how to own your body is never taught.

You are told to focus on all the things in books that can make you a success. That well-dressed man masturbating outside the school wall in his fancy car is not your concern.  Learn to look away from what men do, they are only trying to get your attention.

And then one day when you have obsessed enough with being good and being good at what people tell you to do. When you have enough education and have worked at being invisible, your mother will wonder aloud that soon your breasts will begin to droop and no man will want you. This is the rite of passage when you learn the other endless list of things

You. Must. Not. Do.

If you focus on being too successful you will be damned.

If you cannot multitask you will be damned.

If you cannot make money, have children and look impeccable, you will be damned.

If you make more money than a man you will be damned.

If you appear too needy, too opinionated, to self-absorbed, to self aware, too demanding, you will be damned.

If you do anything that can be construed as threatening to a man’s ability to protect and provide for you, you will be damned.

If you choose to make your life with any other body but a man’s, not only will you be damned but you will damn the rest of us to the ultimate curse of childlessness.

The woman who is older than your mother is gone. You take long drives on country roads to weep and wish you were better.

Here, they say land never spoils. It does not matter how many times it has been stolen or fought over. Or how much blood has seeped into it, spilt from the slit throats of women and children. Or how many men are dashed off precipices by spirit women in search of revenge. Or how many spirit children are wandering around looking for the mothers who did not want them.

At times you have been both the land unspoilable and the boundary plant blood red, bruised purple, hard to notice.

One day because you are a woman you look in the mirror. Like, really. Look in the mirror. You are not as terrified as you anticipated. In fact, you see that what you had not noticed before is what your mind is deliberately wanting to see. It is as if Oshun herself possesses you – this is not vanity but you looking into yourself.

See your mother’s prayers.

See your father’s guilt.

Uncurve your back.

That day you will ask your teacher why she taught you to look away. The same day you will ask your mother why she taught you a thousand ways to avoid rape but never taught your brother not to rape. That day you will apologise to the friend you told that clearly no man had ever really loved her when she points out the bruise you failed to hide. The same day you will finally see that the girl in your class with her tongue half-stained, was told by the man who raped her that he would tell her mother that she wanted it. The stain, you will know, is not a birthmark but bleach.

That day you will see yourself naked and vulnerable, but not afraid. You will see yourself in your bruised bloody glory and be relieved that you do not feel guilty about owning yourself. Of carefully cultivating a boundary of blood and bruises. Of scars as marks of protection against ever being afraid of defending yourself.