This is a piece I wrote a year ago, but I have re-worked it here.
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The body remembers.
It remembers every time Nana tucked a lock of hair behind my child ear; the prism of shattered glass that lodged itself in my temple, another car’s reckless impact slamming my face into the steering wheel; the deeply fragrant coconut suntan lotion I’d slather across my limbs at the first suggestion of summer, days when you could almost taste the wildness of possibility on your lips; the beautiful poet’s grip on my hips, moans swirling through thick air, offering my eyes his moonstone smile, nose crinkle-cut with laughter; Max’s heavy forest of a paw reaching out to plant itself in my own palm.
It remembers the singular drag of a razor across my forearm, petrified that I was no one’s daughter; the hours spent on the tips of my toes, happily trading pain for bliss; the meals skipped and the hollow cavern created inside; the tiny spirit I wasn’t ready to love flowing out as an unrepentant river down my thighs; the too many uninvited hands.
A body strains under the weight of collected memory. But it also forgives, perseveres and sustains. I thank it by treating it gently, feeding it with life and motion. We’re in this together. We remember for each other.
image & text © Jennifer Summer | 2015