[Instrumental] 

I write lullabies
On my spine, 
Soothing the chords, 
And you're 
Plucking at my vertebrae 
Like guitar strings, 
Humming with every stretch. 
Listen to the aching 
Of sore subjects
Sending a vibrato 
To my neck and collarbone. 
You sing my childhood 
Back to me, 
Tracing my song lyrics
With your hot breath. 
I want to be the bone
Breaking your silence. 
Make my body your instrument, 
Strum on my heart strings, 
Drum on my ivories. 
I write the lyrics
Crosshatched like score 
On my shoulder blades. 
My love notes on my skin 
Turn into 
Eighth notes in your throat. 
I am empty words swallowed 
Into bumpy flesh, 
You are the music
Spilling from filled lungs. 
You're comfort to my body
When I'm laid out
And eyes closed. 
I dream of you playing me
From my cerebral cortex 
To my coccyx, 
A whole range 
Of beautiful
Erupting from 
Broken chords
In my curved spine. 

Original Youtube recording is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpH1XigoHD8

[Instrumental] + Music

For This Body

For my big bones, short torso, and small feet.
For my stretch marks and my scars,
My icy skin and burning blood.
For every curly strand of hair
And every freckle.

For my dry skin that peels like eggshells. 
For my pimples that arise one week 
Every month, 
Like a Brigadoon of, well, pimples. 
For my baby fat that I never 
Grew into or outgrew. 

For my womanhood that churns 
Like butter. 
For these breasts I inherited
From my grandmother. 
For my pelvis made wide
To birth new life. 
For my empty womb that will 
Never hold a child. 
For my genes that will never 
Be called Mom. 
For my mother conceiving
Me after three miscarriages. 
For this miracle of my life
Emerging from darkness. 

For my iron deficient blood, 
For my migraines, 
Oh god, for my migraines!
For taking migraine medication every night.

For the hair follicles
Digging deep into my brain,
Like words not yet discovered.
For the discovery of electricity
In the lightning of my emotions. 
For the waves of kinetic energy 
Sent to my fingers.

My stubby fingertips.
(For those, too).
For these hands that hold
My niece’s baby fingers one day
And a pocket knife the next.

For the scars on my elbows
From falling backwards off the jungle gym. 
For the discoloration on my kneecaps
From tripping up concrete stairs. 
For my trembling ankles…

For the zigzags on my belly 
From three failed operations. 
For the abscess in my uterus 
The doctor forgot when stitching
Me back together. 
For my appendix that burst
At the Harry Potter midnight premier. 

For my hourglass figure
Running out of time, 
For never having enough
Or always having too much. 
For never quite fitting no matter 
How much I squeeze and pull and fight
And don’t breathe. 

For wanting
To be less curvy.
For wishing for smaller hips. 
For wishing plus size and thighs
Didn’t rhyme so well. 
For wanting a body tailored 
To me.
For trying to be someone else.  

For this body I love in,
For my emotions tangling like spaghetti
And curly hair.
For my heart that is always 
Off-beat. 
For my veins like lightning-struck branches,
For my spine like a redwood tree, 
Rooted in ambition. 
For when I am most bare. 

For the body I want.
Those I never see on TV. 
For the recovery of self-love
For knowing I am not perfect.
For that being perfect. 
For still never fitting. 

For trying. 
For breathing,
For endless searching. 
For not knowing the meaning
Of giving up. 
For forgiveness.
For this body I live in.


For This Body

For My City

Because

Push me. Some days I need a little push. And your hands, like my father's, put pressure on my back, push, swing, push, swing, and I resort back the the childhood slingshot landing my stone heart between two love birds. The creases on your aged palms match the laugh lines on my grandfather's face the day before he died, and maybe I wanted to hide that insecurity from you until I was ready to reveal the novels etched onto my skin like ivory, but I want you to read that story now and remember the why I bow my head when I pray to gods I don't even believe in and the how I sit in a church pew still and let the chills of a faith I refuse to admit run down my spine and still cross myself with the words "I'm fine." I need you to push me a little harder, past the starter kit for drugs and booze and sex, and I want you to rock me like a baby in your arms when I'm too drunk to see the stars. The moon is the reflection of the scars located on my right shoulder blade after having stayed a trophy for too long. The thing about trophies... They tarnish. Too many men have pushed me. They've told me I'm beautiful, like I've never heard the words before, but, they fester like a sore infecting every inch of my body. Maybe if they'd stop telling me lies and start telling me truths then we'd start breathing rather than sighing. Push me past the point where I can take your liquor thick on my tongue, nauseating me, push me past the point where when you pull your hand back I prepare for the hit, push me past the point where I get sick of all your bullshhhhh.... Push me like a child on a swing. Push, swing, push, swing. And I'll sing you lullabies in my drunken cradle. Using an empty bottle of beer as the last tear drop that fell for the pain of having to look into a mirror of the criminally insane. My eyes are growing darker, and my soul keeps rocking, rocking, rocking like a baby, crying in the cradle of my cemetery arms. A mother who self harms and a daughter waiting for the charms of a father who pushed too far. Push, swing, push, swing. Can you feel the sting of fresh blood on concrete? Push me. Push me against the wall until I feel your hot breath against my ears, and that searing pain and pleasure shoot through my body like a cannon.  Kiss me like it will be your last, and when you get past the point of enjoying me, push me to the next man. I ran to your abuse in the end because Stockholm became the prescription drugs I was overdosing on. Push me to create thin white lines of powder that separates life from death and push me to the edge. Wait for the liquor to take hold of the medication and wait for the sensation of a drug addict and an alcoholic to mix in the bloodstream of a poet and an artist. The monsters under my eyes are throwing parties and I can trace the track marks creating a trail to my heart. Push me. Push me to insanity, push me to the brink of pain. Push me. I feel your rough hands behind me, putting pressure on my back. Push, swing, push, swing. Push me. Until I shatter like a broken bottle in the night. Push me. 

Push Me [Slam Edition]

Short Girl

I've always been known as 
The short girl. 
Never able to reach the top 
Of a shelf 
Short girl.
Have trouble kissing tall guys
Short girl. 
Have trouble dancing 
Short girl. 
I've heard every possible 
Joke regarding my height. 
I've been called names 
That include fun size, short stop,
Leprechaun, bite size, dwarf,
And little woman. 
The best thing I've ever heard 
Was "one small step for man,
One giant leap for Jocelyn."
I found it hilarious at the time,
And some days I still do,
But when my shortness 
Made bullying easier,
It didn't seem as funny.
When a boy could hold 
My possessions above my head,
Make me jump for it,
And never quite reach, 
I felt the gravity of patriarchy
Weighing me down. 
My doctor told me that 
I was supposed to be 5'8,
But my growing stopped 
In the fifth grade, 
My bones hardened, 
And my height is permanently
Stuck at 4'11. 
I'm the less than 5' short girl.
I'm the lied about my height
At the DPS office short girl.
I'm the limbo champion 
For the last several rounds 
Short girl. 
I'm not saying that being short 
Doesn't have its benefits. 
I can sneak through a crowd
Of people without being noticed,
But I never get to see the singers 
At a concert or the actors onstage
If a tall man decides to plant 
Himself in front of me. 
I know that being short 
Means being seen as less of a person.
That I'm only half of what others are,
But being short doesn't make me
Inferior or unimportant. 
It just means that I need 
A smaller microphone 
Or a larger pedestal to stand on.
And when it's raining outside,
Maybe the storm will be over
When it reaches my head. 
After all, 
I'm not just a short girl. 
I'm an anatomically compact
And phenomenally beautiful woman. 
I'm more than my height. 
I'm more than my size 3 shoes.
I'm more than my size youth gloves.
I'm more than my inadequacies. 
To you, I may be the short girl,
But when I climb up onto
The kitchen counter 
In my secret ninja gymnast like ways
To reach the glass on the top shelf,
I will always be cooler than 
Your one armed, no struggle
Reaching for it. 
It may be a small step
For man, 
But it is a quick run,
A giant leap,
A sprint forward
For me. 
And I will always work 
Twice as hard to be
The woman I want to be
Because it isn't easy 
Being stared at. 
Or laughed at. 
I just have to pretend 
That God knew all along
Not to make me tall.
The higher you are, 
The further you fall,
And I have a fear of heights. 


Short Girl

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror, 
I see Superwoman. 

I see the woman 
That prays as much as she slaves away
At her work, 
Waiting for the moment when genius
Collides with patience. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror, 
I see Superwoman. 

But some days, I don’t. 
Those days I notice the stress lines
Writing poetry onto her countenance,
A message of wisdom and of pain, 
The kind of pain that rain does not ever
Wash away by day.
The kind that stays and stays through
Long nights and long days until 
Full novels are written on the white pages
Of her flesh. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror,
I see Superwoman. 

I see a woman who knows she’s on thin ice,
And enjoys stomping on it, 
Just to feel the world open beneath her. 

She knows that when her archenemy returns,
His fists will be as thick as the beer on his breath.
And she swears that she can feel it burn
Beneath her feet as she walks on the hot coals
Of his rules, each more cruel than the last. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror,
I see Superwoman.

But when I don’t, I see my future.
I see every gray strand of hair 
Twisted into knots only boy scouts could untie, 
Wrapped with the thorns of every lie
He ever whispered and every sigh 
She ever allowed to escape her fragile lips. 

If they were a package, they would be labeled “Handle With Care,” 
But there wasn’t much care when he dared
To let his hands talk more than his lips. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror, 
I see Superwoman. 

I see the multicolor bruises fade into the pigments
Of her pink flesh, fresh 
With the tears of another lost dream. 

Superwoman dreams. 

Tonight, when she leaves him for a new tomorrow, 
Drinking down his sorrows with another glass, 
She looks into the mirror, and she sees a woman.
Beautiful and proud, 
Unable to be too quiet or too loud. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror,
I see Superwoman. 

Some nights, she is not so strong. 
She wonders if he is the soul mate that he claims
To be, or if he is just a man that she gives pity, 
Every time he walks through that door. 

But some days, she knows that she is on the right path, 
That she is on the path towards freedom, 
And that his hateful wrath won’t stop
Her from being free. 

She still racks the aisles of fond memories
Until she finds that the only ones that matter
Are those that scream their stories 
From her scars, and the stars never shined
So bright as they do tonight. 

Tonight, when I look at myself in the mirror, 
I see Superwoman. 


SeraphineThePoet's PUSHED