Body Monologues (RE-CAP)
The Body Monologues have officially come to a close, and what a beautiful night it was! ✨
Thank you to everyone who came, shared, listened, and helped make the evening such a success. If you couldn’t make it, below you’ll find all of the poems from the night, along with some photos capturing the magic. Poems marked with an asterisk (*) contain sensitive topics. 💜
Much love and gratitude to Wendi Moore O’Neal, Jazz Franklin, The Movement, Southern Vision Alliance, Bulbancha Beholders, Canoa, and The Pride Center for helping bring this night to life. The evening may be over, but the stories continue. 🌿
In 6 min how are you?
Written & Performed By: Xeena Ellison
I’M ZOIN ALROIGH
I’M ALREADY ENOUGH
I CHOOSE NOT TO MAKE A
MOLEHILL INTO MOUNTAINS
I CHOOSE GRATITUDE OVER
DESPAIR I SEE AN ELECTRICAL
CONFIGURATION OF LIGHTS AIR
CONDITIONING TELEVISED VISUALZ
PAIRED WITH BACKGROUND MUSIC
VIA A HANDHELD BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY
SPEAKERS WIRELESS WIRELESS INTERNET
MECHANICAL MEDICATED BEING BODY
BLESSED IN THE RIVER OF MANIFESTATION
AND GUIDED MEDITATION I GET UP ON THE ZOOM
DISABLED AND ALL AFTER I DO THE YOGA
AND THE AFFIRMATIONS WHICH PROVIDE
THE SCRIPT WHICH I DECIDE FANCIES THE
REVELATIONS WALKING AMONGST ME AS I
SEE OTHERS AS THEY SEE ME WITH A MYSTERY
BEGUILED BY THE SEEMINGLY DECEPTION OF
MY APPEARANCE THEY SAY I DON’T LOOK MY AGE
I SAY I DO THE WORK I SEE THE WORK I DO IN
THE TEXTURE OF MY SKIN MY FINAL BATTLE
WHERE I’VE CONQUERED INSOMNIA
I SEE THE BEAUTY OF THE COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION
IN THE PHANTASMAGORIC EVOLUTION IN SELF
IN THE SUN AS IT MAKES ME SWEAT AND CLEANSES
ME NOT OF SIN, BUT OF SHAME, PRIDE, GUILT, DECEIT
JEALOUSY, ENVY, MALICE, EGO, GLUTTONY, (BY WAY
OF ENFORCED ENVIRONMENTAL FORCED POVERTY
ON DISABLED PEOPLE ALL ACROSS THE WORLD
I MAKE THE BEST WITH THE LEFTOVERS OF
WHAT I CAN DO I DO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY
TO FIND A SILVER LINING IN EVER MOMENT OF
RIGIDITY WHICH ENSLAVES ME OR ATTEMPTS TOO
I SEE A BLAQ ANGELIEN, A ️22nd century
romantic human hybrid reptilian android
full time time traveler and part time garden
gnome troll living under the bridge ♥️
Me, by any other name
Written & Performed By: Derwin J. King
My body has earned another name
I’m not sure I’ll keep it very long.
It's an unnerving thing to be renamed.
Given a new identity.
You walk the world with this firm belief of who you are because of who you’ve been.
Named first by your mother, and if you're lucky a father, too.
Maybe you’re granted a nickname because the one your parents gave you was too rich for the tongue to hold.
Your friends gift you a name that means “love” and you try it on for size.
It fits real snug, makes you feel warm and secure. It came with cute little charms on a friendship bracelet.
Then you wake up one day and find you’ve outgrown it.
The sleeves fit awkward and it’s become too tight, suffocating.
So you choose another.
You choose the name that fits who you believe you should be. The one that shines real bright in the light and sparkles so good people stop and say “oooh, that’s real nice”.
You put it on a t-shirt and wear it with a toothpaste grin. Some days it brings out the orange in your skin and to others sometimes it clashes.
One day your life changes in a moment you least expect. The name you’ve chosen begins to feel more like a mask. Beautifully decorated and truly unique, but a facade nonetheless.
Now, you are nameless.
Caught in a void between who you were expected to be, who you wanted to be, and who you are becoming. Through time, patience, love, and a baptism of tears you are reborn and presented a new name by Spirit. It’s your Technicolor coat. It sounds to your mother like the name she gave you
To your friends like the one signed on your middle school text signatures.
It sounds to you like divinity
Wholeness in view
You wear it on your skin, its
Spelled out in your cells
Its colors create your aura.
Sounds like
Devin
Derwin
Dem
Mase
Smevin
Son
And it means “you”
And then some motherfucka looks at you and simply calls you
“Say, Black!”
My Scars
Written By: Dominyk Bakari
Performed By: (IS)aiah Simon
When I take my shirt off all you see are scars. What I see is freedom. Freedom to be me. Freedom to live the life I deserve. Freedom to live the life I deserve. Freedom to make up the time I lost trying to fit in.
When you see my scars, you ask why? I say why not? Because of these scars I have a voice. My smile shines brighter. My body is at ease. So when I see my scars, I see ME!
The Girl I See
Written & Performed By: Zoey Young
There is a beautiful girl
that I Feel
Living inside of me
Who comes out when
I’m not watching me
She runs around with such charisma
With a striking figure
And suave maneuvers
She is beautiful,
plain and simple
But not only is she beautiful,
she’s aware of it
She’s lucky enough to know it
But when I look in the mirror
That girl disappears
And all I see is me
Inner child, perhaps?
The girl I see
She has the hopefulness of one
who has yet to figure out
her place in the world
And still gets to dream of what differences she’ll make,
what new steps she’ll take,
what new ground she’ll break
But when I cross a mirror
Or a store front window
Or a sidewalk puddle
As soon as I see the outside me
reflected in that honest prism
The girl I see
fades away
And all I see is anything
but the standard of beauty
The image I see
does not match up with the girl in me
Because the girl in me is beautiful
But the girl I see is-
We Used To Play Together
Written By: Kimbrielle Boult
Performed By: Xeena Ellison
I been a hoe.
I hope you know that
Ever since lil mama could even grow dat
At 8 they said I was too young to be this fine. Told by a boy 4 years plus 9
At 12 I was singing to Mrs right
But at 23 it’s really mindless behavior
Cause I’ll pick a lover now and save the other one for laver
But at 14 a hoe had already been made out of me, the writing on the stall across from the bathroom sink
Oh you a freak, you a bop. That’s all the same as a 2015 thot.
But as a hoe I’m everything you not.
Something very contrary
Successful and in control,
Someone with a place to call home
inside of me. Where you were longing to be.
But you mad cause I said no. But the choice is why I’m glad to be a freak ass hoe
Geometric
Written By: Dontez Banks
Performed By: Jalal Saeed Gibson
I'm the shape of the person who does my favorite things.
Clinging to an unknown reality,
Lifting myself arm by arm,
My body is a Persona,
With shape, color, lines, rhythm and function.
I am more than my form I am a presentation.
I invite you to know that you don't know anyone by their appearance.
Apparently I'm persuasive,
Somehow it's exhausting to want to do it all.
So sometimes I shouldn't,
But sometimes I do,
But this body belongs to one who knows the treasure that is you.
You outside of form and without connection.
You who color the page, and wind the projector.
That still image of my silhouette is complete by the negative space.
There is no me within you, We are sustaining joy through the purity of curious inquiry. Outside the bounds of connection,
We find tension in ourselves.
The challenge is to be content with the calamity.
To understand the distance implicit between two beating hearts.
One within, one engulfing.
One enthused, one without.
Entirely separate forever apart of one another.
Me and you
Me and you
Me and you
Who is she, if I am her?
Are we allowed to be?
Who is he, if not who I was?
If I am we, should I cease to be?...
To be seen as me.
If I am one multitude how content can I be?
(To be seen as me.)
Body Is…
Written By: Kalis Pierce
Performed By: Zoey Young
My body is…
I don’t usually think about my body.
Maybe my body is ineffectual.
Maybe my body is so unimportant that it lacks importance-
No, that can’t be it.
Maybe I ignore my body…
I ignore the needs of my body to accept my body.
Yeah, that sounds like me…
It hurts to be ignored…
How can I be so unimportant to you when I am you?
You are not me.
You are what I am stuck with, you are a burden that I am forced to take care of.
You don’t find me unimportant…
You hate me and refuse to admit it! Is that why you neglect me?
NO.
I do not neglect you- neglect is the lack of love and I…
You can’t even say it.
I can say it!
Then say it.
I love…
I love many things.
You may not hate me, but you don’t love me.
I have to settle with being unimportant, so unimportant that I lack existence.
Well too bad, I exist- I am you.
You are not me!
When I look in the mirror I see you, not me.
Then maybe it’s you that doesn’t exist.
Because I am seen and you are not.
But I want to be seen.
I want to be-
Well too bad, you are stuck with me.
You see me and they see me.
You cannot change me, I am what you were born with.
You are not allowed to change me.
Dear Body
Written By: Jasmine Davis
Performed By: Simone Immanuel
Dear Body...
Baby, we’ve been through a lot together.
People have been trying to tell me what you should be for as long as I can remember.
Too masculine.
Too feminine.
Too much.
Not enough.
Everybody had an opinion about you.
What’s funny is... very few people ever asked what we wanted.
When I first started my transition, I thought there was a finish line. Like one day I’d wake
up and somebody would hand me a certificate that said, Congratulations. You’re
officially a woman now.
The more I learned the more I realized transition isn’t about becoming somebody else.
It’s about becoming honest.
I started asking questions. I talked to doctors. I talked to other trans women. Some had
surgery and felt complete. Some wished they had waited. Some never wanted it at all.
And every conversation taught me something.
But the most important conversation...
...was the one I finally had with you.
I had to ask myself a question that nobody else could answer.
“What makes me feel at home?”
Not social media.
Not politicians.
Not strangers.
Not people who think they know what a trans woman is supposed to look like.
Me.
And do you know what surprised me?
I loved you.
I realized I wasn’t fighting my body.
I wasn’t ashamed of my body.
I wasn’t trying to get away from my body.
I was trying to protect it.
For me, loving my body meant understanding it.
Respecting it.
Keeping it safe.
People ask me all the time if I’m ever going to have surgery.
I just smile.
Because they think womanhood lives between my legs.
Mine never did.
My womanhood has always lived in my spirit.
In the way I love.
In the way I care for my community.
In the way I survive.
In the way I sing.
In the way I walk into a room knowing exactly who I am.
Dear Body...
Thank you for teaching me that loving myself didn’t mean changing every part of you.
It meant finally listening to you.
And for the first time in my life...
I did.
I chose you.
Every single day.
Wild Dogs
Written By: Roney Lee Jones
Performed By: Ever Taylor
dark fertile soil
blood moistened and
honey sweet
shimmering with unbroken want.
this untilled soul,
this stallion heart.
wild dogs burying snouts deep
throw humus skyward,
crying out lust
under slivered moonglow.
well timed downpours disperse
hounds back to hell.
Access Denied
Written By: Keyshia Pearl
Performed By: (IS)aiah Simon
What is this thing you present to me, in exchange for access into my temple? A dirty shovel to excavate my diamonds and contaminate my holy water with your harsh stroke. Access Denied.
I Am Not What I Eat
Written & Performed By: (IS)aiah Simon
I suck dick and I do mean dick. God blessed me with lips so I use that blessing. Fully!! wishing that you fill me up with truth or cum. Cause baby I’m cumming. Going down to come back up to you. Eat dick. So I must begin to pray. Starting real slow cause I care about your pick a boo ego. And god taught me with out action the work is dead. So I wisper down to your balls I love you but never want to become you and that’s you a dick. Of course I thank you but also ask you to make me feel pussy. Cause I fight the power. Test my purrr. Than call me mother eartha kit. Cause I heal the world by helping you create new life. And I didn’t need a birth canal to do it.
Sex Lies
Written By: Keyshia Pearl
Performed By: Derwin J. King
He was like my own false sun, a gracious light in my forever dark, an armored knight come to save me from my fright in the night. He reassured me that I wasn’t completely invisible, that I was seen and perhaps heard, perhaps desired, perhaps coveted, it didn’t matter which back then, I just knew that my itch could be scratched by this man whose muscles would bend in reflex to my touch under lamplight bright enough to see the gleam of each other’s eyes, and dark enough to keep me blended in his lies he told himself and everyone else. Lies laced with the self- loathing of indulgent taboos, his poison seeped through my skin with every dose of sin, with every kiss of lust, I wished for his love but received the dust of strong arms and heated breaths. I coursed my fingers under his gold chains and felt his chest, searching for his heart to give him rest and cradle him in my nest but as he thrust his untrustworthy hips with unclear intentions that knew no intervention, I took him in because I did not imagine I deserved more. I could not bring myself to brace my shore against his tide. No pictures, no dates, no holding hands in parks, no acknowledgement before dark, no smiles for a while, no talks until he dialed, no love making, only sex defiled and wild as he devoured me like a drug, a succubus of my divine feminine. He knocked at my door, and I let him in, he flashed white teeth and I spread my legs, a fair exchange for what he brought, what I’d bought; the attention of a man I was lucky to have. Who could or would, love this walking taboo? This confused thing, what could be hoped for beyond a tired fling layered with pillow talk and sex lies, secrets and orgasms despised. He seemed to be the sun, but he was just a dark lamp, in a dark room, for eyes which had forgotten the warmth of natural light.
Body as a Bargaining Chip (Mother’s Day)*
Written & Performed By: Ever Taylor
My mother asks why I do not call on Mother’s Day
I cannot recall the last time I felt my mother’s touch cradling me
Or her lips being a pinky promised forehead kiss
Sealed by her love
I do remember the kiss of a burnt black and mild
Ash used to dry my tears
And arms lazy from vodka holding me like a promise she will not keep
My mother loved me like broken glass swaddling a new born baby
Slicing my scars back open before they have the chance to heal
And now my blood runs boiling hot
Hearing my mother ask
Why I do not call on Mother’s Day
With the same hands she used to draw breath from my lungs
Put a shard of glass against her neck
Threatening her lover not to leave
And I cried
Knowing my mother would always choose these bitches over me
My mother asks why I do not call on Mother’s Day
Like I didn’t spend my graduation paying a car note for a woman who never drove to see me
Like my degree wasn’t enough to pay the debt of raising me
Like the debt of raising me could be bartered in my body
I paid the price for motherly love with unfatherly touch
From a family member
My mother still invited over for thanksgiving dinner
Honey baked ham and a side of sweet sixteen
My mother asks why
Like her calling me fast didn’t coach my legs to spread instead of running
Like at 10 I could’ve seduced him in the monkey print pajamas I got for Christmas
Like at 16 my hips were wider enough to be asking for it
To be raped in front of a toddler wearing the same pajamas
My ash tray skin cosplaying as cum rag
My mother asks why I do not call on Mother’s Day
Like she doesn’t know what silence from me feels like
The same silence she used to accuse me of liking it
Question mama
Did you like it
The first time a man broke and entered
Did you like the way they played Russian roulette with my virginity they way they did yours
Do you forget the pain of grandma telling you it was your fault
When you get her her bouquet every year
Or did you get to cry in her vodka arms the way I never could in yours
My mother asks why I do not call on Mother’s Day
Like her beatings didn’t make my body fall off the bone ready
I’ve been getting my skirt hiked up
Since I was 6
And I my wished
Through grit teeth
And bit lip
You would burst in like Mommas do in movies
Proving
No matter how spoiled the fruits of your labors were
I would still be worth saving
My mother Asks me why I don’t call on Mother’s Day
And in the same breath
Tells me I fucked up the family
Like the family ain’t fuck me first
Like I didn’t use their blood
As ink
In my suicide note
My mother asks me by I do not call on Mother’s Day
And I remind her how much of a gift it is that those weren’t my last words
That I am a promise I intend to keep even if no one else does
That my silence is mercy for a woman who deserves none
And I will spend every Mother’s Day mourning the daughter
She could not save
Hair Mask*
Written By: Cherielle Clark
Performed By: Zoey Young
I’m good, words I use to mask the Sour sop taste in my mouth with filthy hands touching me trying to find my where abouts while words are spewing out my head helping my heart not to fall apart praying but I think I’m an angel or an ancestor away a gulp in my throat that just won’t go hoping to release a sound but I’m too far from home why would someone do this to me contracts through my brain was it because my shorts was too high or cause I wasn’t sitting lady like gripping my hair taking away my innocence with every pull and kink maybe I should have just stayed in a child’s place next time i won’t ask to play a game if it stops from this ever happening again rain rain go away and don’t come back another day.
A Steam
Written & Performed By: Jalal Saeed Gibson
Every limb stuffed with lead ball bearings, I pull my body spirit-first across the open
room. Many times, on this same journey I take again today, I have seized up and sunken
to the floor like the world’s largest beanie baby; once again, I must grab myself
underneath the armpits and present myself to a young afternoon, hoping some love
therein brings this doll to life.
The steam in the shower brings warmth to my feeling, but weathers not the shackles on
my soul; my mind clouds up and swirls like the bathroom air as droplets turn into
whispers, asking, “What are you doing here?” I pick at my nails as my mother enters the
kitchen from behind me, noticing my hands. “You painted your nails?” I did. “Oh...
they’re... pretty...” How can I find comfort in her lie when her face has to wring that
sentence out of itself? I know my nails aren’t pretty because I got paint all over my
fingers, and there are bumps and notches everywhere I got it in the right place, and
because... they’re black. Black is beautiful, yes, but it’s a fairly neutral color for a totally
cishet boy to pick, I think. I wasn’t trying to be pretty; I was trying to be punk. I guess
she read punk with an “o” instead.
Wet keratin glides across my shoulders as she keeps reading me, and I don’t recognize
the story being told. Her own lie feathers out as another’s replaces it, reactions I
expected but underestimated. As I become myself, I become the Devil, as she sees, and
the Devil must be cast out with the bathwater until my body is clean, and, if Satan don’t
listen, he must be beaten until he’s left the scene. Only once or twice has he ever needed
such encouragement—not that he listened then either, but... he still remembers those
blows on his back.
Oh... his back. His back—my back; I need to wash my back. I need to put my brain in a
box and just grab my rag. I cannot listen to my body right now; my body listens to
me—no more thinking and wash yourself.
Soon, I step out into the cold air, smothered, yet shivering, and I check my phone to see
that the time is now 6:37. I open the bathroom door, somewhere hoping that it can’t be,
but the sun is surely setting. What to do with myself now that the day has gone? ...I can
experiment with makeup.
I try on lipliner, and lip balm, and lip glosses, and eye shadow and discover looks both
garish and fleeting. I try on eyeliner and try not blinding myself, and, as I finish, I look
at my eyes, and I think, “Oh... they’re pretty...” I know my eyes aren’t pretty because I
got eyeliner all over my eyelids, and there are smudges everywhere I got it in the right
place, and because I basically just painted my eyebags black. But I think it’s kinda punk.
And I think it’s kinda pretty.
Transitioning
Written & Performed By: Simone Immanuel
Transitioning can be like loosing your mom on a day you weren’t supposed too.
On a day you didn’t want to.
On a day where you must accept everything all at once
No looking back
No looking forward
Just now
As I stare at my mom’s earthly remains
I try to gather my pain and sustain
Try not to have a regretful memory lane
Try not to feel as if I have been chained
With the feeling and knowing that I have
Been forever changed.
Battling with whose in control
Trying to find someone or something to blame.
Sometimes it feels as you start to bloom
Something comes to test you
And honestly I feel ready for the test
My main question is just
am I doing my best?
Have I done my best
Stopping my tears don’t make it hurt less
Is this what transition looks like
Peace
Submission
Empty
And
present
A Little Black Trans Dyke
Written & Performed By: Xeena Ellison
ATTENTION, ATTENTION!!!
THERE'S A LIL' BLACK TRANS DYKE ANGELIEN REPTILIAN IN THE BUILDING!
A LIL' BIRD PICKS UP WITH HER BEAK,
PIECES OF DIFFERENT SELVES
SELVES HE/SHE/THEY RE-PACKAGED,
RE-PRODUCED,
& RE-ASSIMILATED.
...
PIECES OF SELF IN-VISIBILIZE.
HIDDEN POSTURE(S), PRESENTATION(S), POSITION(S)
OF
STATUES ARE CHISELED TO DUST...
...
A LIL' BIRD JUST PICKS UP PIECES
WITH HER BEAK.
A LIL' BIRD JUST WAITS
FOR SOME OF THE OTHER HATS TO DROP.
A LIL' BIRD LOOKS FOR DOORWAYS BACK TO
THEE UNDEAD,
UN-DYING,
RE-LIVIN' BLACK TRANS GORL.
YOU SEE HER...
SHE JUST WALKS GRACEFULLY TO THE BEAT OF
HER INSTRUMENTAL AMBIENT DUB TECHNO BEATS.
SHE POUNDS THE HOT UNEVEN,
EXPOSED CONCRETE PAVEMENT
IN PAYLESS KNOCKOFF TIMBS.
IT'S A FASHION RUNWAY TO NOWHERE
BUT THE DESERTS OF THE DEEP SOUTH.
SHE CARRIES A GALLON OF DIHYDROGEN MONOOXIDE
IN ONE HAND,
HER PHONE SWAYING LEFT TO RIGHT
IN THE OTHER.
...
THEY TAKE A PAUSE,
LOOKING HER
UP
AND
DOWN...
WITH HIS EYES,
HER EYES,
THEIR EYES...
ON HER BODY.
"MAY I ASK HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY?"
I ANSWER,
QUICKLY,
ANGRILY:
"SHE.
HER."
SHE LEARNS TO MOVE ON
BECAUSE THE DEVIL
IS TRULY A LIAR.
THE DEVIL
WILL GET YOU KILLED
IF YOU LISTEN.
HER SOUL
IS FOR PEACE.
HER SOUL
IS FOR PEACE.
HER SOUL
IS FOR PEACE
FOR ALL BLACK TRANS DYKES
IN THE BUILDING.
BODIES
BORN INTO SLAVERY
AND PATHOLOGY...
STALKING US.
KILLING US.
LOVING US.
...
OUR REALITIES SHATTER.
STILL LIFE PAINTINGS
TORN BY SHARDS OF GLASS.
BODIES
THAT CARRY STRUCTURES OF CODES...
UNSTOPPABLE.
ETERNALLY REPLICATING
THEIR FORCE.
Ambiguous Ambush
Written & Performed By: Derwin J. King
Was it too much to ask to let me feel nothing for you?
I hoped i would be just a vessel for you, transporting you to rapture.
I was imperfectly content in Amistad.
Better to do deed and leave than have you take tenancy of my spirit.
I tried to avoid keeping you with me, adding you on my list of men who occupied me.
Marauders who dropped things inside of me without signing a ledger.
Instead, you swiftly drew your sabre, an award winning sweep.
You recklessly carved your
essence into me.
Now, without formal record of you, i am left with your
scent: pungent—permanent.
What was meant to be fleet has become perpetual.
I am stuck in a cycle of servitude, forever bound to the pith of you.
—-
Vault
Written By: Ross R. Ross
Performed By: Jalal Saeed Gibson
There is a vault where you are kept
That leaves my heart is hollow
Yearning for soul to wander back
To its place
While my brain is left numb
Wishing for spirit to invade its depths
Everyday presents a different obstacle
Waiting unbeknownst to self in the shadows
Creeping up my skin
Watching the hairs stand on end
lungs are heavy
Continuously concaving on itself
Leaking shallow breaths
Suppressing deeper sighs
I am looking for you
You as in me, hidden in the shadows
Curled up knees to chest
Eyes wet with tears
Body aching in sobs
So far hidden in the depths of who I am
I am looking for you
I am forcing the ice to melt my hard exterior
That wears a smile like a shield
A distraction from the round glaciers above it
Praying that I find you before the world does
I feel you breaking
...and I am sorry…
I am sorry for not noticing sooner
I am sorry for feeling your presence
And ignoring you
I have a candle
It flickers softly
As the flame tries to find you
I bombard my physical self with healing
I barrage it with love
I smother it with affection
I affirm, I gratify, I give solace
Your outline becomes clear to me
I sit the candle at your feet
And I feel my heartbeat
I place my hand on your back
And I feel nerves spark
Your swollen eyes meet mine
I fall onto my knees
And the ice starts melting
A genuine smile creeps up
Embracing you I feel your pain
Hoping that this newfound care releases you
I am no longer detached from your aches
Reunited with my spirit and my soul and you
A rekindling of lost desires and hopes
I never want to lose you again
Leaving you vulnerable to the cruel world
I am better for knowing you
You as in me that I keep locked away in a vault
Ode to the Body
Written By: Srijani Mitra
Performed By: Ever Taylor
There have been days
like mazes, shadowed memories, disenchantments as sequestrations,
Days. on which,
barricades were placed,
shackles were raised around this self, this body, this echoing ache. and a convolution as some coagulated concentration of pain
broke apart the arteries. the parchment. the throat - barbed wire, groaned.
There was no grant of soft breath, no feeling that comforted or a celebrated attachment,
Only gruesome images of an audience that later you might realise is imaginary,
There were days on which a raw ferocious want slithered
onto these green veins amidst a bronze brownness,
A rising desire, again,
shattering the insides into pieces ,a want,
To gain the shape, clarity, perfectionist priority, the
finesse of a narrow social conditioning,
Now I say, after the black, sable grey,
This fold of tummy and saggy spiralling skin mirrors the wild side of anxiety,
The brown burnish becomes burden, yet
As in Shahid Ali’s words I tell you
Mad heart, be brave –
This brownness reminds of
The soils, the taste, the smell of my mulk,
This heaviness of breath, these broad thighs - breathe of lionesses,
This glistening epidermis is emblazoned with courageous tales,
Not bonneted, not corseted
It speaks of my emancipation.
Out of the megrim, how I soar nearer the
Limitless luminosity of the expansive sky,
Like a serendipity of a grand discovery, how I sigh,
To see the reflection of a home,
How I belong to you, my body, how you belong to me.
PHOTO GALLERY
Thank You :)
〰️
Thank You :) 〰️
Keep on the look-out for when we post the full video of the show :)
With Gratitude,
LOUD
