my body is not an act of contrition
it’s not a performance I put on to pay penance to those who must look at me;
this is not a transaction,
my effort at some standard of beauty
for your regard
I will not apologize for your attention,
or arrange myself to make your looking at me a pleasant experience
I will not suffocate,
agree to the expense,
or bow to the impracticality of it all;
I will not mold myself to earn your recognition
my body is not an act of contrition
he doesn’t even have to say it;
I just know
it’s like the steady warmth of the sun on my face,
always there, even in the winter,
when life’s circumstances stifle the flames
he doesn’t even have to say it;
I just know
it’s not a midlife crisis,
it’s a cracking,
like thin ice on a puddle of water,
first just some hairline wrinkles around the eyes,
then the rest, all at once
it’s a 40-odd year journey of finally feeling free enough to crack,
of figuring out how to pick apart the shell and stand in the presence of myself,
of giving myself permission to unearth and to write,
but also to stalk my own soul,
and sometimes having too much of my own self
sometimes the stalking hurts,
if for no other reason than my skin doesn’t feel like it’s mine;
sometimes I panic,
because I’ve been staring at the answers for so long,
but can’t locate the questions
finding and asking the right questions,
speaking them out loud and in the open,
oh, God –
it turns the air around my words into weather
they say a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences,
but that isn’t entirely true;
if my past was all that defined me,
I’d never be able to put up with myself –
I need the freedom to convince myself that I’m more than the mistakes I made yesterday,
that I am all of my next choices, too,
all of my tomorrows
I am words into rain,
face upturned as the dirt around my bare feet becomes freckled with brown question marks,
my body a thing to be spoken with
and I reach out with open arms for those I love,
pulling them so close there will never be room for blame
Heart Breathings 