I Have Been Issued A Body And I Have Several Complaints
by Kiernan515
I Have Been Issued A Body And I Have Several Complaints
I have been issued a body and she is a catastrophe
in the most gorgeous sense of that word
she runs hot she runs loud she runs into furniture
in the dark and then stands there in the dark
holding her shin saying
okay okay okay
like she can bargain with the coffee table
like the coffee table has a complaints department
like anything in this life has a complaints department
I have looked
there isn’t one
nobody told me it would feel like this
I don’t think I am handling this well
I have filed the forms in my spleen
which is already backed up
which is operating at significant capacity
which is mostly just
a filing cabinet for feelings
that arrived without return addresses
and I did not know where else to put them.
My nervous system is a telephone switchboard
operated by a very small woman
who has been awake since 1997
and is doing her absolute best
but cannot stop routing everything
through the grief department
the grief department
which is just
a room
with a window
and no curtains
and the light comes in
at every angle
all the time
and the woman in there
has stopped asking
for curtains
I don’t think this is fixable
I have a ribcage that keeps the receipts
for every time I said
I am fine, I am good, I am doing really well actually
and the receipts are
very long
and the font is very small
and they curl off the counter
like ticker tape
at a parade for something
nobody was supposed to survive
I have a mouth that opens
to say one thing
and produces
an entirely different thing
at a volume that surprises everyone
including me
and I am always in there
somewhere
trying to say
the right thing
at the right time
with the right face on
but the mouth has its own
agenda
the mouth is a union worker
the mouth has filed its own grievances
the mouth went to a meeting
and decided independently
to say the truest thing
at the absolute worst moment
and then just
stand there
glowing
proud of itself
absolutely ruinous
completely correct.
My kneecaps are the most optimistic
part of me
they keep proposing
that we kneel
for things
that do not deserve
a kneeling
they keep bending toward
every beautiful disaster
like a plant toward
bad weather
like they think the bad weather
is the sun
like they were not there
the last time
like they never got the memo
that we are not doing that anymore
we are not kneeling
we are standing
upright
feet flat
chin up
both eyes open
except sometimes
in October
when the light does that thing
it does in October
and the kneecaps
get involved again
before I can stop them
and I am down there
in the gold of it
in the specific ache of it
holding my own ribcage
like a thing I caught
and cannot keep
and cannot
put down.
And it is embarrassing
and it is involuntary
and it is mine
whether or not I agree to it
the whole disastrous
receipts-in-the-spleen
mouth-with-an-agenda
optimistic-kneecap
thin-skinned
loud-voiced
hot-running
coffee-table-finding
mine.