Meet Me in the Woods

the body.

i hate my body;
my wretched,
ugly, fat,
curved in
all-the-wrong places,
porous and dirty
body.

i detest this body
as my mother
scowls upon the
body of the being
she birthed,
her daughter
that bears her own hips
far too similarly.

i hear her voice
clutching my
every love handle
each time my mirror
states back at me,
whispering that if i
only lost twenty five pounds
that i will be as beautiful
as my friends,
lighter upon
my horse's back,
and more loved
by the blind eyes
of a man.

do away with
my face, too.
tear away the
acne scars
and pores
and the creeping whispers
of hair.
i am ugly and disfigured, dirty—
a bog witch's bastard daughter
to be cast away.

please,
let this impure soul,
be clean,
for once,
even if it means
i will die
turning myself
inside out,
blood never drying
beneath my fingernails.

it is a broken one,
too.
i am covered in scars
and callouses
and moles
and old bruises
and contusions
and handcuff marks.
darling,
you do not understand
that when i say
"i went through the woods"
that i was dragged behind a cart,
limb from limb,
for miles and miles,
shredded through bushes
and circled by vultures.
this body
is filled with rock shards
and the ground
is so unsteady.

i am not a safe place.
i am not a beautiful place.
i am not a place to stay.

but though my body is ugly
and wretched and broken and sinful,
i know that someday,
it will be good again.
it will be redeemed.

when i leave this place
after all
my body
will cease to be human
and ugly and imperfect.
it will be but
food for the soil,
fodder for the worms.

my manly skeleton
will fall away
into that deep ground,
and it will grow and feed
the rivers
and there will be life.

my skull will be last.
flowers
will grow
from my rotting eyeholes,
and i'll finally
be beautiful.