Body Of Work

a zine about coming as you are

1.

This body is complicated.

This body hurts.

It rages.

It is loud and draining.

2.

This body feels tired

as easily as it breathes.

It demands that I stop.

It will make me stop if I push it.

3.

This mind is complicated too.

4.

It forgets to be aware 

and it forgets to be quiet. 

It spins tangles of thoughts

and gets stuck in them.

5.

Some days, it runs so fast, 

it would make me 

go and go and go

until I dropped.

6.

I love the firework days,

But all too often

I wake to ash.

The wasteland days 

when all I want to do is sleep

hurt me more than my body does.

7.

I don’t know why my body rages.

I don’t know why my mind

shuts down.

8.

But

this IS the body 

the one must I use 

to write my book 

and make my art 

every single day.

9.

This IS the mind 

the one I must encourage

to start, to stick, 

to stop and start again.

10.

To write and make art every day

the way I long for, 

I must come as I am. 

11.

My body and mind are flawed 

and so

some days, 

many days,

the work will be too. 

12.

This is its texture, 

its interest, its honesty,

its surprise and its voice. 

This is its joy and its aching grief.

13.

I have to allow it to happen.

The single thing 

standing in my way

is trying to be something

I’m not.

14.

I must help

my flawed body, 

my flawed mind, 

to make flawed things; 

as many as I can.

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