I TAKE IT BACK

The Word for This II by Jess Ruzz

There are things I do not owe. No part of Me is yours to claim; I absolve you of My failures. My body is no debt. You are free to declare Me the black sheep, to engage in rituals of mourning for one still alive, as some do, viewed nonexistent to them. Would you have the nerve? (In the purest place of My heart I believe you would not; I grant you this. I am not, oddly, the monster you have convinced yourself I am.)

These are the parts of Me I take back.

I take back My hair; dyed any damn shade I please, to cut as an imp (“now we can see your face, mammeleh, such a punim” but you never asked why I hid) or to grow out and to the sides wild, ironed straight or spun spiral or simply left to do what it does.

I take back the flesh of My cheeks, where you permitted Him to latch on with his mouth, to imprint the strands of his spit, to allow the scrape of his tongue, sucking sometimes till tiny vessels burst, leaving Me red, irritated, inflamed and embarrassed; taut now but beginning to creep toward my mouth with age, spaces not to be injected, the lines a reflection, a reminder of what I do not wish to be.

I take back the skin of My neck, beneath my chin, “under the guggle” He called it, tickling and poking, fingers chasing as I tried to squirm away; now for Me only to smooth potions that make My throat firm but not to erase, never to erase Me.

I take back the flesh of My triceps, now banded with jewels of ink, Hadassah arms, the shameful (you reminded me, punishing) sway of them, a place you made me cover with chiffon, sweaters, with self-conscious intent and textiles, standing on a tailor’s step; the faint slackness today still a shiver in motion, despite the undulating, shifting strength beneath My shoulders from the weights I have carried.

I take back my belly, a place weight habitually has landed, round then, folding in dance leotards and bat mitzvah dresses, later perforated with a small loop of silver, despite you but not to spite you; where my child would someday grow and stretch me in ways I could not imagine, appearing flat now beneath the shield of garments, but still draped over itself, crepey and forgiving, minuscule hills and valleys in the texture, a clear stone winking from this soft place for hands and loving secrets to hold.

I take back My breasts, that grew mystifying, mortifying to you (“where did you GET these?” at fifteen, in an open-space warehouse dressing room, as though I’d found a department store sale and not shared my secret, forty percent off My value), something I inherited elsewhere, thus inherently wrong, too big, unseemly; but seemingly designed and destined (how I wish I’d known what they someday would do) to fill and empty and fill and empty, to give life; I gave life with these parts of Me.

I take back the pads at the insides of My knees the outcropping of bone alongside the edge of My foot the nails I wear short and of a color not prescribed, the middle and ring fingers that bend towards each other (you know these, you wear these shapes too), the small of My mouth that is not wide like yours, that speaks judiciously; My right eyebrow that lifts to a perfect arch on comment, the patches of My surface that are freckled, discolored, velvety here, dimpled there, scaly elsewhere, mottled from the ways I have tried to stay warm; I take back all of My skin. And I take back, from you, from Him, My ass, if you will (and you will, you haven’t a choice now) My glutes (squatting and climbing, as high as I wish), my tush (I shudder still, I cannot speak The Word for This), My bottom (you’ve no idea how low), My behind (can there be a past?), the place where I now sit within Myself, call it the back side of Me call it what you will I TAKE IT BACK, I take it all back.