To feel like myself

To feel like myself

To feel like myself I need to be quiet
to close my eyes
and count breaths.

To feel like myself I need to be naked
to wrap my arms around me
and sway.

To feel like myself I need to be aroused
to hear the music with my skin
and flow.

I find it hard to feel like myself,
to feel myself.

This need to be quiet, naked, aroused
is often a wonderland
I don’t have the time, means or courage to travel to.

My bodyscape forgotten,
I live in exile
while my muscles decay,
estranged from my own skin
as if my skin belonged to another body
and I was occupying someone else’s mental estate.

My body, seized,
by the sterile claws of civility
ceased and desisted to exist without me.

Me, the one who can hear her silence,
teeming and buzzing with life.
the one who senses
change,
and growth,
and transformation.
Whose senses, considered, bring her back home.

Home is a feeling,
the feeling of “you belong here”
where all voices, loud and low, are welcome,
and your birthmarks and scars caressed.

You belong here.
your wild and your tamed.

You belong here.