To: My Body

 

I measure my life in blinks of my eyes
Because they'll accurately describe
But how to describe them
Well you'll have to ask one of the many men
Who looked right in them when they lied
Or the best friends that held my face up
Every single night.

I can move my hands
My tender palms across my face
And feel the ugly that
No one else says they can see
Though still avoided like the plague -
I'll believe I have leprosy
Then she'll come around and
I'll catch a glimpse of her smile at me
For a moment I am cured
I am beauty

My mouth is so shattered
That words no longer form
I have stitched it closed and
Now can not see my voice
How pretty it was when it danced
In one of your ears and then out the other
My songs were too naive
Too sweet, too sincere, but no more
My voice trusts none

I trace the lines on these hands of mine
Lines marked for future, marriage, life
Clever patterns made to deceive
Things to pretend to believe
A future life to never happen to me.

Against my back there is a bruise
A mark I was birthed with
Past lives of falling down the stairs, 
Being used, being abused.
I am here now - to heal
But there is no medication for
The off color of your skin
I am a victim of recognition
My past life regressions
Taking place in real time 

I am back now
In the same old shell
In a different time.