in response to some of bhanu kapil rider’s questions inside of “the vertical interrogation of strangers”
and god said; what is the shape of your body?
small red tip of an unlit match. she lies there, she waits for me. waits in the wild places where wrens & swallows & words written in stone on gravemarkers are grown over with moss’ soft green mass. she wades for me, in pools on the kitchen countertop where the small red match-tip is soaked through with dish water—wades with fingers instead of toes, claws as if
NO I SAID WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF YOUR BODY?
a cleaved walnut shell, blackened with rainwater & rotting with mold. a teardrop.
my father’s voice saying my name in that disappointed tone only he can take; the scar on my mother’s left pointer finger.
WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF YOUR BODY.
what is a body but a thing to teach to hurt?
to love? to hurt & then love; to repeat; to go on.
the shape of this body is something like my mother’s but from her we learned to hate it; to hurt it;
above all, to never love it.
the shape of my body is diagonal & green. it sings in springtime & mourns in the winter. it cannot eat a fish but will swallow
bucketfuls of thumbtacks in early morning hours.
my body is a chasm where my mother’s worst fears came to live.
I am still trying to kill them.
bodies & bibles & bodies &
in the beginning my mother told me her horror stories—
hands that reached inside & twisted
tore up pieces of her childhood She bared
beautiful motherly hands callused fleshy palms
scarred fingers turned towards our
living room light
As if there could ever be enough
light in a room to transcend
the darkness that lingers
in the ridges of her skin.
in the beginning god created the heavens & the earth
& my mother clenched a tight fist & put it
against her chest As
if the words might choke her
Told me i held power in the word
No
& the earth was without form, and void;
& darkness was upon the face
of the deep.
& i became this face of the deep, of the scarred hands—of myself.
& the spirit of god
moved upon the face of the waters.
& i became without form A child
who wept without understanding
at the stories her Mother told without understanding how she could live
in a body that never felt like hers. A body forced to perform; to obey.
and god said, let there be light! and there was light
and then darkness, in a shed, in my middle school boyfriend’s backyard.
he was everything i wanted at thirteen! Conceited and selfish and cute, all freckles and green eyes—
all roaming hands when unsupervised;
Fighting me in a dark corner
& god saw the light; saw the darkness; that it was
good:
& god divided the light
from the darkness
& there was only darkness in that corner In that
drafty shed with its leaning
pool table I’d like to tell you
that i said no when he tried to rip
the cropped shirt from my chest
Screamed it Made him hear
my power
But i think that i did not think; only fought
Him
Remember fighting him
Until
He hugged me
Fighting Hugging Fighting Hugging
Hugging & then Fighting & then
god called the light day,
& this darkness he called night.
& the evening & the morning were the first day.
And then his mother baked chicken breasts for dinner
And then i didn’t know how to use a knife at thirteen
And then i didn’t eat the chicken, couldn’t He kissed me on the car
ride home with too much rubbery
tongue in the backseat
While his father drove.
And god said let there be
A firmament in the midst
Of the waters and let
It divide the waters from the waters.
And god made
The firmament—
i’d like to tell you
that all the hands looked different
but after some time they feel
The same.
This is what matters to memory. Not the colors of the eyes
(first green, then blue, then brown, blue, brown, brown, and these were all different sets of eyes and hands)
Not the hair Or teeth Or legs Or the lashes
A human hand against my skin feels the same as looking at the scars on my mother’s as a child
There is a terror at the pockmarks
The freckles & grooves on the pad
Of every finger hovering around my shoulders
And in the evening and the morning were the second day And i learned this day and all the days in between that sometime between two and three a.m. exists a stillness that eludes people like me in the waking hours When no one is looking
i trace the crook of my elbow let my dogs sniff the sweat in the craters behind my knees when i’ve sat too long on the couch Reading
There are moments Usually but not
Always at 11:30 or 3 o’clock
Sometimes after 6 when my eyes close for a second longer than a blink
And a hand brushes my arm
When i am doing dishes or walking to my car
Or reading to a child or opening the door
for my dog or shutting a door in a hallway or when
a boy i barely know won’t stop looking at me
won’t stop grabbing me won’t stop trying to pull the shirt back off my body won’t stop because he wouldn’t stop and in these moments i am always only ever 13 again and fighting a boy with beautiful green eyes who was the first boy to ever see my breasts and this was against my will and i remember standing with my chest heaving and how his eyes moved over the palest skin of this body. How he hugged me with my shirt still pulled down and my body was locked against his.
when i forget the parameters
of my skin & touch another person
The trachea clenches itself like my mother’s fist
Against My Inside Her
Chests
The toes extend within the sneaker
Ears hollow Bottom out & god said
let the water under the heavens be gathered
together unto one place, & let the dry
land appear: & it was so.
& god called the dry land earth; & the gathering together of the waters he called seas: & god saw that it was good!
good
Good Wonderful,
even!
Another boy who did not hold me;
Said virginity was nothing special
Nothing sacred Not for him
The words were not spoken but one of the things he most often
[And by this really i mean always] Got Wrong about me was his assumption that i didn’t know Didn’t understand The way he liked to do things
Liked to tell me about my teeth
The spaces between them & my gums I like to sharpen
these canines into pointed daggers on a dizzied up memory of his blue, dented driver’s side door
He liked to tell me how he wasn’t attracted to me Liked to push me on my knees
on a concrete floor & i liked to count tiny grooves in the cement wall of my college bedroom & wait for things to be over
The words he never said Never needed to were that sex would be nothing special
Nothing sacred for me, Too
I’d like to tell you there has been an accretion of power in the realization
Our minds were playing different games— His one for control & mine
One of survival
& Maybe he will never know it But i know which of us was stronger.
& then god said let the land produce vegetation Seed bearing plants
& trees on the land that bears fruit
with seed in it & it was so
& there was morning & it was the third day
& there was my mother— my first & third & all days This power she claimed i had This power i could never find for myself
You say no she said
& i knew this word was important to her
That she wanted to inscribe
it on my lungs; make me breathe it
You can always say no
Except at 2 in the morning At a house party
When a boy younger than me threw me in the pool Pushed me up against slimy
vinyl siding and slid his hands under the top of my bathing suit
You smell like vanilla he said
You taste good Like raspberries
You smell like chlorine & algae i said back he laughed
& god said You can always say no
except to the mother Except to the youth group & your father when he gets into a mood Smashes holes in sheetrock right next to your mother’s head
Except to the seductive rage that will be your family inheritance
Except to weeping & sheltering your brothers & one day your mother & the devout sisterhood between the two of you that you cannot deny; cannot forgo.
Except to a boy with a girlfriend Telling me his relationship was open Except to nausea roiling over & under my skin
My friend telling me Over & Over Excitement in her eyes misreading the wrinkles around my own because i don’t want to doesn’t sound good to a 19 year old girl who isn’t interested in being your real friend in that moment
Just fuck him Tell me what it’s like How big it is
I’d like to tell you this is the thing that has never left me
The next day his girlfriend texts the girl who isn’t really my friend Says she wanted to know if i was okay because the boyfriend made it sound like
He raped me
Says he’s a monster
[am i a monster?]
This thing is stuck in the cavity in the back of my mouth Writhes
when i touch it with my tongue
Look at it in the bathroom mirror
I’d like to show you
I’d like to tell you that sometimes despite my trying
i still don’t know
if the monster was him or me.
For her, the girlfriend who isn’t dating this boy anymore,
i think it may have been both
Think maybe it will always be.
Think of walking past her in a walmart
Think of shame cells mutating inside this body
Think of choking
Think there is no holiness i could ever touch
Think maybe she spent nights like the one i did,
a body passed out next to me, snoring. Thighs, shoulders clenched
aching. Back damp from semen i could not reach alone in a dark bathroom
After.
Think i’m sorry could never be enough for either of us
well, god always has a plan, my mother always said.
well, god doesn’t let things happen for no reason.
I wonder if He pays attention to us beings slipping beneath his giant, Holy feet
I wonder if He recognizes my face
& god said let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night Let them serve as signs to mark sacred times And days And years
& mother said to daughter you can always say no
But mother never meant for child to defy her To question in the brightly lit sanctuary of a church on a military base
Whether or not she had to attend the weekly youth group meeting
& Mother Did Not Like It when daughter raised her chin
in front of a Good Fellow Christian
the light-blue-green of Mother’s eyes darkened near the irises
The sanctuary echoed daughter’s No a little louder
Shadows gathered in the wrinkles around her angry mouth
& god said Honor thy Father & thy Mother
& Mother asked Father how they ever made such an unruly daughter
How little girl could question Thy Lord Thy Savior Thy Mother when she and Father had given her all this life
all this strife with all these boys and all the weight of this body with its breasts and blue-green eyes like Mother’s
Who always said to say no because she didn’t get to; couldn’t; couldn’t deny the Man in her home when he wanted to yell, to fight
And then Daughter couldn’t; didn’t get to—not when she didn’t want to go to meetings or church or lunches or grocery shopping; not when the Man in her home wanted to yell, to fight
And then Daughter grew up, & god saw that she was soft
And compliant And she could not say no again when a Man tried to pin her to the wall
Wanted to Fuck her when she didn’t want to be Fucked and she said the word— No
and this Man pulled back his blond head and green eyes and smiled before he kissed her again; before he picked up her body through the belt loops of her shorts;
Stripped her of her shirt and purple bra and all her denim;
Threw her body into a bed. Told her to be louder.
& Daughter was ashamed.
& Mother never knew. & Daughter never told.
& god looked upon the light & said that it was good
& i looked upon my darkness & knew it could never be
what is the shape of your body? this body is biblical; brittle; tattooed with a bell. body with breasts; brown-black hair and brows like its father’s. big boned, like its grandfather said. big feet for a strong foundation. Big body chasm where Mother’s worst fears came to live maybe to one day die maybe to one day Exhale
do i look like her? is my stomach as big as hers?
well your boobs are so much nicer than mine, i breastfed for so long that they’ll never look like yours again. you’ve gained weight but you still have an hourglass figure; you wear too much makeup; you’re so cute; that dress makes you look frumpy; your skirt was very short; you need to stop wearing those v-neck shirts, you’re dressing like a whore what is the shape of your body but your mother’s and her mother’s and her mother’s and her friend’s and her sister’s and all those bodies living inside of yours with all those fears written in the family girlish text of girlish grief deep inside your girlish maybe family cheeks. what else might a body be if i did not know to hate it. to sort of love it. to hope for it.
who was responsible for the suffering of your mother?
her father / my father / nearly every man she’s ever met / my body, my brothers’ bodies when we all pushed our way out of her / she told me that when she was pregnant with me the doctors found a 27-pound ovarian cyst that would’ve killed us both / we joke and say i saved her life / the middle child was the only planned pregnancy / went off without a hitch, she says when she tells his birth story / the youngest got a nurse fired / wasn’t doing her job; wasn’t listening when my mother said she needed to see the doctor now / my youngest brother was almost born in the waiting room / my father wouldn’t wake up that morning / maybe he didn’t think it was real / maybe he didn’t think it was real, years later, when he mixed all his pills and random medications and his beers /maybe he didn’t think it was real those nights i drunk texted him asking why he couldn’t love me out loud / maybe he only knew when he woke up with a broken cheekbone and a car wrapped around a tree / maybe i knew, then, too
my mother tells me that my brothers and i are the things she’s most proud of in this life / and i sit and i wonder if that pride / or any child in this world / could ever be worth all that pain
could ever be worth all that selfless, endless kind
of love
how will you begin?
this began long ago.
how will you live now?
& god told me twice, as a teenage girl, that He was Real.
not when i prayed, silently, that if i rolled over
the side of my bed that He’d catch Me Make Me Float
But once, on a night i thought i might kill myself i opened up the bible
How long, Lord? Will you forget me Forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must i wrestle with my thoughts
And day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God. give light to my eyes, or i will sleep in death, And my enemy will say
“I have overcome him,” And my foes will rejoice when i fall.
But i trust in your unfailing love; My heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise, For he has been good to me.
Psalms 13: 1-6
I opened and closed that bible with a quickness
i didn’t understand
Remember thinking that He must have been listening Must have cared enough to let me know
& when i was 20 i got a 13 tattooed on my right wrist to remember this verse and that one Night when i thought i might die that any god or the universe or some thing somewhere in the sky was listening and didn’t want that to happen.
& when i was 17, shaking with anxiety and unable to sleep
The night before my college orientation i prayed again:
Please, God, just let me sleep; let me rest; let me calm
down
And a hymn i hadn’t heard in years came into my mind
Fear not, for I am with You; Fear not, for I am with You; Fear not, for I am with You says the Lord
At 25 i don’t know if i still believe in these things
Don’t know how to feel when i look at the muddied up 3 of my 13 that most confuse with 18 instead.
I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
my God, my strength, in whom i will trust; my buckler;
and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Psalms 18: 1-2
how badly i want to be able to hang
myself—all this faith in something that i don’t know how to name; all these questions; all this anxiety and pain and stress—on these words.
I want a god; to believe in something that exists outside of myself; cannot name it. I yearn for something holy
to hold closely between fingers
to Gnaw
on in the middle of the night when
these sins rise up & writhe between my ribs
who are you and whom do you love?
I am the voice inside my head that will not quiet; that does not rest
I love the winds that carry this voice over rolling hills and creeks when i scream i am silent atoms inside the beloved scream and i am the cherry at the top of a tree who loves the sunshine as it Bears down on grass beneath my roots
This body moves in circles; beneath the grasses; in happiness; through tragedy;
This body is a chamois cloth, soft and furred and smelling of lanolin on a spring breeze
This body is my mother’s body And from her we learned
How to survive it; this living. How to love it; these crooked valleys & sweat; these dimples & giggles & above all how to persevere.
Around the creeks of my home i look for weeping willow trees she once called
Turtle Trees Ones she wants her ashes spread into the roots of so she will grow up among its new body & live forever in the drooping branches.
When i find them i feel as if she’s already died; as if i’m looking at the wispy remains of my mother, my genesis, in their billowing green leaves & branches. For her, this life will be eternal.
In the diagonal greens; the gaps between my teeth; these words.
and what do you remember about the earth?
My Mother’s Father only went outside to check on his pot plants or ride the four-wheeler to check on the extra ones he grew wild in the woods behind the couple’s house that lived across the street from he and my nana.
His yard was the great wilderness of my childhood—a pecan tree rather than a weeping willow, with a decayed rope tied around its lowest branch for my brothers and i to swing around the trunk, a rusted swing set, a small pear tree that never bore fruit in all the years i played in that yard. My brothers & i ran over the grass with bare feet in the summers
Even when it had not rained and the blades crunched painfully beneath our feet
June bugs would cling to our toes beneath the dogwood tree in the front yard and my brothers would cry until i plucked them free.
In the evenings we ate chicken from the grill, the skin burnt black when our grandfather cooked it, while we watched lightning bugs and listened to the hum of cicadas in the woods on either side of the house.
This pocket of earth is where i lose myself in memory; this place i cannot return to because these things and people are no longer left there for me to find.
A dead grandfather; a sold house; a preacher living
across the street praying
for us all
what are the consequences of silence?
the earth and all her junebugs. Mine and my brothers’ innocence. My mother’s. Maybe even my father’s. Maybe we all lose something as a consequence of silence. Maybe it isn’t my place to name it for anyone else.
And god said
Let there be anguish
where did you come from?
The 27-pound cyst on one of my mother’s ovaries.
how did you arrive?
I sprouted from the depths of pain deep inside her and that cyst and have only brought her more.
tell me what you know about dismemberment. It happens from the inside, open wide, spread your lips around its phallic shape and inhale.
Bring it deep inside you. Swallow all that breakage down like semen when a man uses his fingers to open up the soft shell of your lips.
I dismembered my mother’s insides when i ripped myself out from her. My brothers did the same.
Used to dismember the skin of my thighs and arms when i was ripping them open with a blade.
What i know about dismemberment is simple—we do it to ourselves, to our mothers, to those that we love. We tear them up; let them go. We bloom & break inside the bodies of those that love us & then our own.
And god said
Let us return; to silence,
to shaking;
Let us hold our brothers and look upon
their grace, for You will have none
Of your own; for You child
will sway but never waver
from church of mother, of brother.
from prayers written in most holy
of family dialect. for You child
there are only spring deer, fountains
with which to drown
your biblical breasts & bones.
shepherd’s hook to hang your bells & lies & shame.
altar at which to press your forehead;
close your eyes & sing.
may you go forth, & always
blessed be.