The Body
Chelsea Fanning
Waist-deep in velvet , crushed between seams and underwires , I wonder who first thought to put thread to fabric , skirt to waist , hem to heel ?
I ’ ve been living two lives , one complete with an elegant set of teeth , bone-white china , liquid eyeliner . The other buried under my big brother ’ s hand-me-downs .
I exist in the space between pushing up against the bars like a caught rabbit – trapped in a body that both belongs to and is foreign to me .
I want to exhume the body underneath this femme façade , put a match to perfectly puckered lips and salt the wounds I ’ ve gathered .
I am not who they said I ’ d be .