My Flesh Belongs To Me
A poem about reclaiming her body
A poem by my friend Spicy Lavender
All these words on the tip of my tongue
Sweet like nectar,
Ready to drip into the open mouth of the waiting world
The anticipation sending chills down
Our collective spine.
Whisper in my ear all the combinations of words you are too shy to scream,
And scream all the sweet nothings too bold to whisper;
I wait for you here, somewhere in the in-between,
In the stickiness of finally saying how we really feel.
Your breath thickens as my exhales
Approach your ear —
Is it because you can hear me closer now,
More clearly?
A sigh slips from my lips
And exhales with longing
But also with a cruel carelessness;
You could be anyone
And I don’t care cause I’ve trained myself not to,
A body is a body and mine will never be only yours
And for that, I am not sorry —
I will never apologise for freeing my flesh from fickle possession
I will be bold in my ability to float between prisms that suit my shifting sense of necessity,
I will fall in love with no one so I can fall in love with everyone,
In a constant state of flow
A constant craving for teasing to the world
All the parts of me you can look at but cannot touch,
All the parts I keep hidden
Mine, mine, mine, all mine.
I am reclaiming my narrative
That for so long was robbed from my shaky fingers,
The ones that were deprived from the blood flow they needed
So dearly to survive
But they did, somehow they did
So now I honour them by letting them only caress other flesh fleetingly
Without commitment
Some may call me cold
I call me bold
Brave
Alive.
And I am confined by nothing except the limits of kindness and compassion
Of inflicting no harm
Of honesty
Of love.
My version of love
The one that makes me feel alive
The one that no one can take from me
The one that is priceless
Indestructible
Infinite
Neverending
All under my autonomy
My body my mind.
I take back from all those who thought it was theirs to play with
I kindly yet boldly release a smiley fuck you to the ones who lay their dirty hands and eyes on all that was not theirs —
My flesh belongs to me.
