My Body

My body is a dustbin

Collecting what is forgotten and broken

The overlooked and the rejected

Are welcome within my walls

My body is a minefield

Ready to go off

Touch me anywhere

You’ll trigger trauma everywhere

My body is a row of dominoes

I line myself up

Only to watch myself fall down under the slightest stress

Finding myself again in the middle of a mess

I want to ask my heroin addict sister

If our mother did to her what our mother did to me at night

If my sister experienced similar humiliation and violation

If she felt God-forsaken hour after hour awakened

Torn between nightmares and the horror of real life

I wish I had drugs, prescription or illicit, to help me survive this pain that is always by my side, a balm for this immortal mortal wound

Ever the warrior, I muscle through on my own

Only when I am alone do I feel almost safe

I cry and say the words I didn’t say

Feel the loss of the one who got away

My body is an international currency used to bargain, barter and beg

My body speaks a universal language, from my hair to my legs

I have forged deals in the most unlikely of places

I always felt underpaid

Time after time I find the perfect storm, my shelter so that I can disempower myself, disown my sadness, illustrate it through external circumstances

I thank my pain- my loving protector

I thank my body- my stage and specter