Story of Body at 19

Yo, so I was working on another piece all week, but I got in my feels and wrote this instead. Sorry to be heavy two weeks in a row. 🙂

 

Story of Body at 19 Years

A Spoken Word by Shayn Jackson

Father taken at six.

Returned at sixteen,

And stolen at seventeen.

My body is beautiful.

Praying to a Savior since seven.

Catching the bus since eleven.

Waiting in the cold since forever.

My body is beautiful.

A hundred scars on my skin.

Ugly” whether fat or thin.

Forever holding this fake ass grin.

But my body is beautiful.

My body is beautiful.

Your body is beautiful.

“You’re so sexy.”

“You’re so handsome.”

“You seem so well-mannered.”

“Your hair’s nappy.”

“You just stole some.”

“You can’t be employed here.”

My body is beautiful.

My body is beautiful.

I try to hear my mother tell me:

My body is beautiful.

Over the media and commercials,

My body is beautiful.

Through murder and death row,

My body is beautiful.

Above genocide and hanging poles,

My body is beautiful.

Against institutions with no soul,

My body is beautiful.

I just have to keep reminding myself.

My body is beautiful.

My body is beautiful.

Words that I can’t even hear.

My body is beautiful,

So can you touch my hair?

My body is beautiful,

You like my exotic flare?

My body is beautiful,

So I shouldn’t mind when you stare

And find things that you tell me are wrong with me?

You steal my skin

And try to sell it to me.

You wear my lips,

But call them ugly.

You cut my throat

And ask why I can’t breathe.

What more can you take than everything from me?

But my body is beautiful.

I’m always half empty,

Heart black and bruised

I’m always remembering 

How much I have to lose.

And Im always too anxious

That today they will chose 

To silence me like my siblings

And erase all the clues.

But I’m trying to remember what my Mama said too.

My body is beautiful.

That is my only truth.