I have a question — at what point am I allowed to love myself?
At what point am I allowed to say
yes, I know I’m not supposed to,
yes I have suffered enough, yes I know you prefer me a little bit broken
so I’m easier to swallow
but I know the ugly that can be foisted upon me,
force-fed like foie gras
and still
I love my tough skinned feet that never blister,
the collarbones jutting like a warning,
my steadfast march to answer the bell,
the days I could level a skyscraper with just my fist
and all this goddamn beauty.
This world is inhospitable to that kind of joy,
to the victory won by ceasing to fight.
Don’t be afraid of my beauty,
it isn’t about you.
You can tell me that I’m radiant, that I’m sexy, that my body is perfect –
it isn’t.
But, take this body, and the way its thighs curve,
the way they touch,
the way they melt over battle-scarred knees.
Take this body when air-drying after a bath,
watching the drops hold their positions
like tiny soldiers made of predawn dew.
Take this body when it is all stop, all quit, all uuuugggghhhh.
Take this body when I am too cool for sunblock and wrapped in red death.
Take this body when I sing to quiet the monster inside, to let the light win for a little while.
Take this body and the unabashed greatness of its laugh.
Take this body when my hair is unkempt,
with cowlicks and wild wisps of unintentional bangs.
Take this body when it tears up the stairs to reach the platform before the train pulls away,
the Devil’s kiss in my calves, the pinprick holes in my lungs.
Take this body
pock marked and tiger stretched, hairy and goose fleshed,
roll it inside your endless fingers
and lay your head upon the plush, fleshy bits of my stomach,
like halle-fucking-lujah, we are still alive!
It isn’t magic,
but it’s what I got.
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This piece was a collaboration – co-written for a slam poetry show opening this October in Chicago, IL.
If you are in the Chicago area, come see “Handsome Animals” written and performed by the Chicago Slam Works House Ensemble — I promise, you poetry lovers will not be disappointed.
Much love, as always.
the musings of a miss 