Body

I present to you:

My Body.

This vessel that is mine.

I introduce Her, tenderly, as the mover of me,

the mover of the mountain that is the world, that is my mind.

I show to you

the way She dances.

The way She keeps dancing.

All I give this Body sometimes

is sleep.

This Body

that could potentially give me the world

and I just pay Her back

in sleep-

in dehydration-

in tears.

The only home I can give Her right now

is an unconscious one.

I like Her best unconscious,

As in, I like myself best

when I’m not thinking

or doing,

or being, really.

When I am not failing to cope.

When I am not overwhelmed with the emotions I give Her:

the heat of panic,

and the torturous pain of having my lungs fail at the one job given to them,

and have my chest constrict and contort and feel like it is being sucked into a black hole,

and have my hands shake,

dust falling off of them as my skin and bones crack under imaginary pressure,

and my ribs contorting,

caving in,

falling to pieces.

As in sleep is sometimes the boldest act I can perform

because death is too permanent

and suicide is too final or too in-between or too incomplete.

I am learning to love my Body, even still.

She has so much in store for me,

so much power rippling under the surface,

and I do not need scissors to reach it.

I am learning that I do not need scissors to reach it.

I want to learn all the wonderful things about her.

I wonder what She has not yet shown me.

I want to believe that my Body is beautiful,

even when She is under the hands of boys

that do not love me.

I am starting to see my Body as

a magic mine

that cannot be depleted.

But still,

men will try.

This weighs heavily on my spirit,

which rests in Her,

so it weighs heavily on Her,

by default.

Sometimes She grows weary with the things

that taint Her skin,

the rough hands that have held Her down,

the mouths that did not listen when she moved Her lips,

her mountains

to say

no.

I am moved by

the way She moves, regardless.

I am moved by

all that is resting inside of Her,

sleeping until I wake Her one day,

gently,

to allow Her to shift the world.

To allow Her to use love

as her first line of defense.

To do the work that She

was molded to do.

She is the purest truth.

The most holy of vehicles that is

desecrated occasionally,

worshipped sometimes,

present constantly.

A shrine does not stop being a shrine just because naysayers

piss at Her altar.

So much evidence

of the power She possesses

that cannot be taken into account

given their cognitive limitations.

She is art

that will exist with or without

twisted mouths

and grabbing hands

and pissing cultists.

She is art

that does not need to be appreciated

by faux-boys or faux-girls,

who are really just wolves in human clothing.

She will not be filled

by whistles

or text messages

or empty compliments

or convenient appreciations.

She is art

without the rocky tendencies of outsiders to

love Her only when she is dancing.

She is art

with or without

me,

inside of Her,

sometimes wishing She would stop dancing.

But She is not art

without me fully.

Me, the artist

who helps makes Her meaningful.

She was an idea I put into practice.

She already existed,

but I pulled Her to the page,

pulled Her to the canvas,

pulled Her by the hand,

and put Her on a glittering stage.

She already existed,

but no one would know

if I did not give Her the desire to smile,

did not show Her the softness behind Her fingertips,

did not teach Her about the ways in which She can stretch

and grow

and is shaped by the experiences this planet gives me.

She is not art

without my pain.

Have you not been taught that pain is a mode for creating art?

That people turn to Gods when they are broken?

That something is studied when there is a need?

She is a God with or without worshippers.

She is a God of small things and large things and She cannot rest.

She is being written from the seams of the heart in Her chest.

She is being sung from the throat,

the low, guttural part.

She is being heard from that space

just below the ear.

The extra delicate one.

She is being smelled

from the wild parts of her.

She smells of rejuvenation

and fresh air.

The smells of salted ocean

and sweetened honey

and She feels like the most nutritious earth.

She feels like sustenance under Her own fingertips.

She tastes like sorrow, but joy, too.

She tastes like sunlight and moonlight which is still sunlight, at its core.

She looks like rain. She looks like summer, and rain, and hurricanes all at the same time.

She looks like a lightning storm. Every bolt is passion.

She looks like a moment of silence.

She looks like many moments of silence,

sewn into a tapestry of loud laughter and loud living.

She is an epic tale I cannot stop writing,

and in this way,

She will be rendered eternal,

like She deserves.