when is it my body?

when you’re reaping the color of my skin

reducing my culture into a category that only accepts

squinty eyes and figures so thin

your words cut deep into my flesh

and maybe you were still sawing

until the whites of my bones satisfied you

 

when is it my body?

when you find me hugging the bathroom floor one day

dry-heaving

rib cage gaping, belly full of bones

aside a toilet bowl swimming with a forgotten meal that

i was not grieving

would you hold my hair back, darling?

as i succumb to the vomit surging up my neck

didn’t you want to see me like this?

as i’m gasping for one last breath

thinking, skinny before death?

 

when is it our bodies?

when you fling filthy fallacies at us

like wads of chewed-up paper spat in our fearful faces

that stick to our skin until we make the races

back to home, back to safety where we are free

to scrub at ourselves raw of your lingering impurity

society's plastering of hips and thighs

are they really mine?

keep it hidden, keep it covered!

but my worth is not measured by how high

the hem of my skirt will lie

 

when will it ever be my body?

when you lock me out from the bathroom

with a sign hammered to the door that clearly states

WOMEN’S

my pronouns are not up for you to assume

and use a false title assigned to me in the womb

but how do i elucidate to one that views me as nothing more than

XX or XY

yet who am i to fume

when you have made it clear

that people like me

are not equal to people like you