My Dear Body —

When I first encountered you, 

I was interested. I explored you,

like all other objects I came across,

with fingers and tongue; gradually

understood that I felt those sensations

inside as well as outside myself …

realised you were attached to me.

I needed you when I began 

to move about – then discovered

you wouldn’t always do

everything I wanted, were not 

as pliable, agile or strong

as I’d have liked, or even

as some other children’s were.

I was still young when I absorbed

the message that you were girl, therefore

required to be beautiful – and were not.

I assumed that would be forever;

no-one told me to expect any later 

blossoming. The view in my mirror

has remained filtered through lack.

I’m not sure why that mattered so much.

After all, I never thought you were me. 

I saw you as container, a necessary house 

for Me: my thoughts and feelings.

I looked after you, but carelessly,

with the least possible effort, except 

when you occasionally complained 

Only now, ageing, I begin to know

you have always been partner, support,

willing helper, inextricably entwined

with all that I believed myself to be.

I perceive, at last, that brain and nerves –

from when come those invisible tendrils

I've been calling self – are in you, of you. 

Written for Magaly's prompt in Friday Writings #142 at Poets and Storytellers United.