my body betrays me
it wishes to be inseminated by more than
inspiration
and american capitalist ideals

it yearns to create its own masterpiece

but motherhood isnt warm and fuzzy
isnt just a lovely concept

life is hard

instead i impregnate myself with a little piece of metal
swollen *******, mood swings

and a breeding kink to boot

i am not a poet
my period is
my hormones make me feel prophetic
and tortured

lets paint the hallways with menstrual blood

except i am bloodless
‘cause of my iud

my ****** loves to play tricks on me
i dont really want to be a woman

i am an enemy of the body

the corn in my curry is the same color as my shoes

but i cant taste anything

the sun is the same color as my shoes

which reminds me i can still feel things

why is there corn in my curry?

my first love
i fell in love with being loved.

now i am searching for a love
such that i can fall in love with loving another.

i used to spend hours in the shower
as i child, playing out
make believe wonders 'til my fingers
were prune-y and the water turned to ice.

now my adult mind is a constant blur
of to-do's, and tick-tock's, and
never being satisfied with the amount of
time in a day and is there ever
enough of it left to just
soak.

today in the bath, i loosened my mental grip
and leaned into the grooves
of a younger brain as i stared
at my ***** hair

pulling it towards the sky
and in the place of coarse keratin
rose a tiny forest, on a tiny island,
with two, looming mountains
emerging out of the sea beyond.

i rose to a seat and embraced my
knees as my shins turned into
textured tree trunks.

the water still draining from around my ankles,
rinsing off the day, rinsing off the clock, i took special
care to give every part of me affection and attention,

i tickled my armpits and my *******,
kneaded in between my thighs,
hugged my shoulder blades.

and as i bent over to clean in between my toes,
i wondered how many people take the time
to wash their feet in the shower.

at age 8 i stopped wearing jeans because they were uncomfortable.

at age 14 i wore high heels, fish nets, and skirts to school and a man once asked my mother if she really let me leave the house looking like that.
i also wore checkered pajama pants and shirts with holes in them to class, i dressed up and down because everyone else seemed to dress in the middle.
i dressed however i wanted to because my mother told that guy to shut the **** up and mind his own business.

at age 16 i wore crop tops the size of sports bras and pants so tight i understood why they called them skin-ny jeans
my **** and *** would be flying all over the place,
but people with larger **** and larger bellies, people like me, weren't supposed to be wearing those sorts of things so i thought i must.
or so i thought.

at age 18 i started dressing in oversized shirts and formless dresses
i didn't believe my body needed to be objectified and put on display anymore,
i didn't need to prove that my waistline was small enough,
i didn't need to wear the spanx i wore every day at 16.

at age 20 i stopped wearing make up or a bra,
my **** sagged and eyes bagged but i wanted to show people that ***** aren't always perky even on twenty year olds.
i also stopped shaving my armpits
i thought they were cute.

at age 22 i stopped shaving my legs.
i didn't think they were cute.
but i realized not every decision i made about how i presented myself needed to be in order to make myself more beautiful.

and at age 24 i shaved my head.

a man once asked me,
as he looked at my college ring wrapping itself around my pointer finger,
if i always did things differently just to be different?
and if id always be doing things just because someone told me not to?

i should have looked at him and asked him
what has he ever been told he cannot do?