our body is an old light
that flickers when you open the door.
I flickered for years.
Pinching and pulling and plucking at the shame on my face, I thought that I meant nothing because I did not have the right mathematical equation of facial features, I was a flaw, a failing, a fault, a two legged pale SOMETHING, if not a woman-- pale as the face of the moon and cratered and eyes too small, I looked in the mirror and was disgusted with my own narrow and shallowness.
I've heard that we're made of stardust.
But I still think that we are more dust than star, old tomes that librarians are too afraid to open for fear that our spines will crack. I flicker, and crack, sometimes like lightning. More nervous.
my body is a story told by slam poets that make me want to write. I keep hearing their voices resounding in my heads and chills run up my spine in a constant measure of rhythm, like there is a metronome keeping time of emotion and envy and awe, maybe planted somwhere in my spine, growing steady as watermelon seeds unravelling up my trellis bones, reaching up into my lungs and throat and I hope that when it reaches my mouth, I can speak like them too, resounding and heavy and kind:
when their hands tremble and raise and shake,
I can feel the leaves they planted inside of me do the same,
it's like the eye of a storm
caught in my ribcage and I want to burst foward with all of the things I have ever felt,
but do not yet have the words to say them.
I am a protest.
A silent one, sometimes, but not today, today I am loud and fierce and wanting, ready to use my two good hands, ready to run and fight and yell and demand the things that I need because I am tired of this degradation and I am an argument and a solution, a tongue twister I can't quite fit my mouth around and sometimes when I stumble over my words I feel like I will never quite find my feet again, but I do and I run and run;
up in my attic I have this old trunk of clothes that don't fit me anymore and buried somewhere between the layers there is my old mantra of "will I be enough, will I be pretty, will I mean something because someone will look at my body and want me on their sheets, to be between my legs, will my body be enough" and I want to burn each word like an old lover's photograph -- not in a gentle catharsis, in a bonfire, in a blaze consuming all the bruises that he painted onto my face with his fists, all of the nights when I thought I was barely worth the effort of the swing. instead, I take the entire trunk out and burn it in the street, and I am the surge of fire, the crackle and roar.
I am an old history of grasping fingers:
penny per square inch where a breast is a quarter and thighs are a dollar,
the realization that I am more than what holds me, I am more than the angry hands shaking my body with their angry words echoing in the dim parts of me,
I am more than the value you might slap onto my wrist,
than ribs and flesh and dusty circulatory systems,
hips and breasts and shallow stomach.
my body is a weapon, a storm, a bottle slowly cracking like ice, a sun exploding, the light, the fire, the unsureness of whatever it is it will become;
its flesh does not accept pricetags
it is not a bit of exposed leg. it is not a gentle voice,
or a rough one,
it is a story being told in the voice of only itself,
something meant to break and mend and unfold
and unfold again.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyy goshhhh
This is sensational, and I can't seem to say it enough--or have anything else to say but "wow!" lol
This is, by far and foremost, the most gorgeous piece I've read on here BY FAR. Simply amazing! I adored this with every fiber of my being. I dunno what to say exactly...it was just sooo incredible, and I'm not extreme on flattery. I try to be honest, yet kind, in my reviews, but I don't have to candy-coat this one in the slightest. This is beautiful and I'll be checking out more of your work for certain. You have a very unique and personal style, and I'll certainly take the time to read all of your work when I can
Brilliant and beautiful!
Keep writing c:
Catnip~
Pers,
The line about slam poetry actually brings to mind that this would be something really powerful performed up on stage and read out loud with all the reverberation and power that a voice can bring, because the voice is in this. This poem IS voice, and it's beautiful.
I like the tackling of the tired subject that is body image, and trying to bring your own spin on it/trying to bring something new to it, and I feel like you hit it strong in the beginning/first half of the piece, but as it tapers to a close, it gets a bit weaker/watered down.
I think the reason is because somewhere in the middle you were adding in layers on top of layers, like we started with body image, going onto writing/poetry/expression, and while your transition introducing these things are fine, we don't get the same treatment with your conclusion. Your transition concluding these two themes is not as smooth or seamless, and it's a bit foggy (Foggy as in, I'm not really certain where we are with that "unfold" bit, I can assume things, but the uncertainty doesn't satisfy me, not when a piece is this bold, strong, and direct.) So, instead of a rich blended smoothie, we get a liquid with some chunks -- I get the feeling this is two different poems trying to be meshed into one, instead of it reading like one wholesome, rich poem.
Your opening lines 1-3 is oh-man, mouth-watering kind of stuff, Pers. There is a crisp precision of words there. The next bit opens it up more and I like it because of the earnestness. Even bringing it to the slam poetry, we get a layer of life experience, day-to-day
Besides the one I mentioned to you, this line sticks out:
Lovely imagery and sounds there. I would comb through the grammar/spelling of this, because that's not the first typo I noticed, but no big-- it didn't really disturb the reading aspect.
After the "I am a protest", I would say is where you'd want to work on your transitioning between ideas -- but other than that complaint, this is delicious as always <3
~ Auds
CAN WE ALL JUST APPRECIATE HOW WONDERFUL AUDY IS RN
First of all, when i read the title, i kinda felt a little...funny (can't use a different word).
Anyway, i really liked it especially how you relate the female body being dangerous, makes it sound like a nuclear bomb.
Anyway, keep writing because i"ll honestly keep an eye on you...uhhh, your writings.