My body is a stranger
It unwillingly lumbars from place to place aching all the time under the strain of having to carry itself from the garden back to the concrete and swelter under the heat of airconditioned vents and the keys chattering away on a keyboard.
Sometimes we shut our eyes and there is the burning when the oxygen hits them and every breath is ours and we fought goddamnit for it and sometimes
the only thing I can say I’ve done is made it until I could crawl into my sliver of a bed and move the dog to the right side and, stretch out my muscles and tendons and all the other things the body is and
try and recognize my life as mine and not some distant life that I keep watching happen to some distant girl, like a movie that I have muted on in the background while I
iron my clothes and yours too, and make food for the men in our house (because that is what the women do)
and clean the food scrapes and scraps off of the table and sweep them onto the floor until the boys then step on them, barefoot, crumbs sticking to their toes and
trying to sleep after a long, long day of apologizing
(because that is what the women do).