Poem to my Body

[Kestrel McLoughlin]

Poem to my Body

By Kestrel  [McLaughlin]

 

My body's fighting me 
 

It seems to want to keep me in acute phase 

The disposition formerly known as Fight or Flight 

It's no longer called that because  

So many other things than danger ignite the body's systems 

All it really means is Something is Really Happening, Emergency, Wake Up 

  

So I'm awake 

I'm stuck awake, looking for the fire 

What’s happening, where’s the fire 

Giving up on hitting my ignition with joy, desire, dancing, 

My body communicates to me with the language I still speak: 

There's danger 

  

There’s mysterious pain in parts of me that once made me supernatural 

Or at least unearthly 

I was called Absurdly Graceful once 

Like a newt 

My many support structures worked in such communal tandem 

It was as though I floated when I moved -  

The world was my bed-of-nails 

And I landed too gracefully for any one thing to hurt me. 

  

What are you telling me 

Why is there pain right where my children cuddle into  

Why do you position yourself as though holding weight 

as though carrying something overwhelming on borrowed time 

 

There was something worth exploring in that grace I once was -  

Have I missed my opportunity to dance in it?   

You’ve been telling me some of this since I was a teenager -  

I didn’t listen... I’m sorry –  

Since adolescence you’ve been reacting: 

Reacting to nothing, to just the act of being you 

As though you always rebelled against your own nature -  

 

I know I generally hate my torso, 

But I notice I’m not happier about it when I’m skinny, 

I would feel just as ridiculous if I sported fuzzy muscles. 

The cold. I’ve always liked the cold. I can wear billowy things from neck to ankle.  

Maybe I don’t hate the heat after all.  

But what exactly do I want to look like before I’m allowed to celebrate it? 

 

Wherever a body hair grows is a tiny red dot, 

Like five million teeny wounds, 

As though my follicles are little shivs, 

As though you’re wishing you were softer... 

I know the hairs have a job -  

They make me feel more, they protect me from the cold, they even cushion trauma... 

But I’m so tired of being just safe, of just being useful.   

Can I please just have one unreasonable quality. 

 

I know you feel the same way.  You hate being like this. 

There are people who would give anything 

To grow the stop-sign red Velcro-rough facial hair you effortlessly can 

It’s amazing you can do that.  

Its four disparate colours and textures are like a chronicle of heritage. 

It’s like a celebration of your story. 

 

I want to be far more gentle on you.  I’m not attacking you.  I want you to feel proud and celebrated. 

And if I thought you wanted to be this, I would love you for it. 

But you keep telling me being hardened and rough and sluggish hurts and tires and feels alien.   

 

But you’re telling me something’s missing,  

you’re telling me something inside is growing and flourishing,  

You’re telling me something near the surface is getting ready to molt and fall away 

If something underneath is ready to emerge and replace it, 

Or otherwise wilt from rootrot.   

And I’m not really getting clarity from you about which you’d prefer. 

 

Every time I tell you the environment demands camouflage and stealth, 

Wasting your ability to flourish, your need to glimmer, 

You request compensation in endorphinal agonists, and you accept food, touch, or music as payment. 

I’ve done the math:  the sheer level of payment you require 

Means you must get a -quite a lot, really- of pleasure from feeling beautiful.   

Or is it about taking a break from scouting duty? 

How many calories a minute does it take to watch people’s faces for malicious intent? 

 

So this flourishing thing: 

What does it eat?  What nourishes it?   

Is it me?  Is it an intruder?  

What does it want?  Is it symbiotic, parasitic?   

Will it be kind? 

 

I want to help you.  We’re the same.  You are my home. 

So what do you say. 

 

Friends?   

Can we figure this out together? 

[JK]

I absolutely love this. Beautiful work. ❤️