my body
is beautiful–

wait,

no,

fuck.

try again with more
conviction this time.

my body is beautiful;
its curves ascend more than the rugged
Alps, they fall like contradictions
from a politically incorrect statement. my body is the
pavement of my mind’s highway but these
flyovers keep collapsing, I’m trapped
under the debris of esteem
(not self-esteem, that requires a mind-heart
team effort).

my lips have kissed all kinds of royalty;
my hands have polished enough crowns
and sworn fealty to the right people. My loyal legs
once opened wider for you to go deeper
but I don’t like thinking about that, I don’t like
talking about you.

start over and this time,
mean it.

my body is beautiful; have you seen
how my hipbones curve like wishbones?
(when you find me stuck between
your gravestone-teeth, will you promise
to break me homolytically?)

have you seen how my thighs purge
out of society’s idea of perfect, how my knees
have blackened with mainstream scrapings
of a childhood too far from me to keep
waiting to come back,
no,
haven’t you seen my concave belly?
haven’t you seen how its crests remind you
of a siren’s home;
have you not seen how my ribs
kiss my skin with enough love to keep it
close? my body is home,

my body
is beautiful.

is this
real enough to remember?
I think I’ve made enough knots
to make this barbed-wire-eulogy
seem a little less of a fallacy.
can you pick the specks of dishonesty
out of my eyes, please
and explain to me why my body
is beautiful when my thighs keep wanting
to kiss their inner diameters?

can you please
tell me why it’s okay for breakfast
to cross over into spit
and acid? can you please
tell me it’s okay to feel like you need
to stop touching yourself
because if anything else,
owning myself
feels like I’m raping myself

and saying,
“I am beautiful,” is about
just as easy as fixing
my aching vocal chords;

I cannot make myself come
to believe that this body
is beautiful.