It was my 37th birthday today! So I’m sharing a poem I quickly penned that’s been jangling around my mind for a while.
thirty seven
Lately, I’ve begun to obsess
Over the lines that hold my face
The furrows, the crinkles but mostly
The handles that embed my smile
The energy around this is familiar.
It’s moved through my body before,
Frozen me in hours of obsession
Over my numbers and space
Over skin that somehow still erupts
Even as it ages
Over body hair
I dug up by the roots
In anything but celebration
As if I could rid myself then
Of the passage of time
As if I could hate a blank canvas
Into being.
Somehow without much notice
There came the calm,
Weapons laid down,
I stopped weighing myself
And staring into the mirror.
Maybe I’ve been too busy or tired
In these earlier years of mothering
To prepare enough hatred
To bathe myself in it.
Perhaps my life is about more now
Than it felt like it was then
Despite living in the same body,
Despite housing the same soul
But now I pull at these creases in my face,
There even years ago
But suddenly urgent
As if I’m walking around
Cracked open
Worried that the lines on my skin
Match the lines on my heart -
That life itself is digging up
So much of me
For you to see
And the energy moves again,
This time
With invitation.
Pulling at the creases in my face