37

I don’t think

you deserve my complexity.

 

the roundness of the fat on my belly.

the sagging fatigue in my eyes.

the way I look and feel 1,000 years old

          when I wake up from the dose of death called a nap.

 

The squeeze in my shoulders of skin and flesh

against the sidelines of my chest.

My butt. Wrinkled and rough and beautiful.

No. I don’t think you deserve it.

 

You

are looking for

a manufactured female specimen,

straight from the test tube

in the lab whence you get off from work.

 

Not

a real woman.

just a silhouette, a spectre.

 

So you don’t deserve the way my tired breasts

heave up and down to accommodate my lungs in exhaustion.

The way the peripherals of my hips curve in at just the right angle.

The way saliva drips from my lips as I sleep.

 

No.

No you don’t.

 

So I keep on.

 

a poem by Sui Solitaire