My body is a bad thing,
a sad thing.
Reaching for what hurts it,
screaming for what hurts it.
Grasping pain by the heels- begging it for pleasure.
My body is a hall of hurt-
half-baked ambitions line its walls.
Lust and loathing chase each other
like snakes, or shadows, across its cold floors.
My body is without a master,
for I have certainly never manned its helm.
My body is a weakness,
a nakedness.
Roaring back to life at your touch,
dissolving into a trembling mess,
a heap of mournful emptiness.
My body is an angry voice,
whispering vice in every corner.
Crying out to love
Dying to be loved.
My body is a bad thing,
dysfunctional, deceptive
My body is a sad thing,
grieving its own end
mourning its own loss.
Commentary: This piece is written about my own and some dear friend's experiences with self-sabotaging behaviour, and bodies that just won't cooperate sometimes. There are elements of auto-immune diseases such as chronic pain, ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as well as more mundane challenges such as food allergy and intolerance, depression, anxiety, ADHD, dyspraxia etc. I have observed that people who suffer from illness, particularly invisible illness, often feel like their body is a separate entity unto itself, like an element that is detached from who they are and what they want to do with their lives, and its dysfunction is nothing but a hindrance. Although I subscribe to the idea of celebrating and being grateful for my body, and caring for it as I would a young child, there are times when I can't help but feel frustrated with it, and that's where a poem like this is born.
