Inside Out
There is a part of me that believes
that because my body is untameable
it is also shameful.
A part that believes the lies,
that looks with envy in the eyes,
betraying the soft and mountainous
isness of me.
I am not an itty bitty thing.
I am not strung taut and lean.
I am a big Mumma
making the world.
Like a planet my surface has survived
meteoric barrage.
I am battle scarred.
There are holes in my soul so big
it takes a harvest to fill them.
Like the ocean’s surface my flesh
ripples with a thousand stories.
I cannot be shrunk to size.
My body flows out like a feast
or a font
or a furnace
of love and holding,
of fear and withholding.
So far past pretty
I have become an ancient creature
of crevice and moss,
blemish and scar,
my flesh chooses it’s abundance uncontained.
My son says
you are the most comfortable place, Mumma.
And I know there is more to give than a sleek facade.
My mountains and valleys give life,
they are not wrong.
Because of this dissonance inside,
it’s scorn and scathing,
I am less alive.
I avoid mirror and reflection,
my mind skims quickly
the quagmires of shame
that ask me to become less of me
and more pleasing
to the impossible strangers
who fill my eyes each day,
each glance taking me further away
from what I am.
From the rugged terrain,
the untameable universe,
the myriad wildnesses
of my very own body.
Be still, gaze of my father,
voice of the world
that says I am wrong and less and flawed
to be the very shape of me,
the very tone and texture
of me.
There can be a nuanced comfort
that defies appearance.
A heart inside that pulses
with a limitless love,
like an ancient tide.
It is enough to be here,
deep feeling of body
spirit made flesh,
a miracle.
Be still, hungry ghost.
I am a big Mumma
making the world,
I am not less,
I am just more.
This life is a mission
of mammoth proportions
and I cannot house a traitor in my skin.
With Ariadne’s thread I turn inside
to hunt the deserted paths,
and track the source of pain,
the harrowing beast of my shame,
her monstrous hatred
of my wild.
My heart was born to love her home
it knows what must be done.
My heart has done this a thousand times,
the redemptive wooing of the broken,
the vast and patient succour
of a Mumma’s love,
making the world
safe,
from the inside out.
Image and text Copyright Lucy Pierce 2021
