NoBody

what’s this body,
it’s not my own

it’s a vessel, a safe
harbor that empty 
place you pour stories
into for safekeeping, a 
temporary placement 
for cummings and going’s

it’s a pillow, I’ve never
quite understood my
self as anything other
than your gendering of
soft curves and softer
boundaries that for so
long were violated with
hands and then stares
and then 

it’s a placement, or it’s 
a bookend where your 
expectations are meant
to be upheld, nestled,
reinforced within the 
distance between myself
and my gender 

I don’t know what it
means to be 

It’s a safe harbor
A pillow 
A placement 
Book ends if you will 

It’s boundary less 
It’s boundaries 
It’s his property 
Or her assumption 
Or their right 

Why do you cast shame onto 
Me and mine, my curved and
My hard edges - without asking
what led us here. 

what's a body 
if not my own