A Riot On My Hands

Spoiler alert: It’s not about modesty, darling

They called it “A way of life.”
Claimed painted nails were vanity -
a gateway to lust,
a slippery slope greased by Jezebel herself.

So for twenty-six years,
I wore obedience down to the cuticle.
No colour. No gloss.
Just shame,
filed and buffed
to keep me repressed.

They said God loves a natural woman,
but what they meant was:
be whittled - worn & mutable
be seen, not coveted
be theirs.

I was - until I woke up a stranger in my own skin.

For my twenty-seventh birthday,
I had my nails decorated with gumballs -
loud, nonsensical, true.

A riot of colour
where servitude used to sit.

And they looked fucking whimsical.
Not seductive. Not scandalous.
Solely untethered!

Childish, maybe -
like the girl I never got to be.
The one they buried
beneath ten thousand holy threats, a madman crowned in 10,000 sermons, and a God with a white man's face.

Colonizer, joker, and ghost.

But these weren’t just nails.
They were a childhood-soaked
“Fuck You”
to every elder who weaponized “Sky-Daddy”
to keep girls in line.

Because here’s the gospel
they never dared preach:

It was never about nails.
or about modesty -
it was always about governance,
the iron fist cloaked in grace,
wrapping the noose of submission tight around our throats

The patriarchy dressed up as piety- grooming daughters into robots
before they ever had a chance
to pen their own memoirs.

So yes -
one of my first acts of rebellion
in the wild unknown of emancipation
was gumballs on my goddamn nails.

I will not repent -
for the rainbow
the whimsy for reclaiming joy
at the ends of my own
resurrected
hands