It’s world poetry day today! The day when all my brilliant poet friends post brilliant, heart-wrenching poems that make me clutch my screen and itch to put pen to paper too (or in my case, hunch over my notes app and frantically type out fragmented pearls with several typos). I call them pearls because I love them and I think they’re quite good most of the time, although ‘quite good’ is subjective and tends to change drastically depending on my mood.
I wrote this one on the train heading back from work at half seven in the evening, achy and bloated (it’s period time!) and a bit too hot, and I like it! Clearly the mood here was a bit combative, and I don’t want to be the 'it’s hormones’ cliche but, it’s probably hormones. Or the man next to me who farted the for three quarters of the journey home (and I know it was him because he was the only person who left the carriage at his stop, and the smell went with him!). Either way, please enjoy my poem about why I always, definitely, relentlessly, exercise for men.
I love the idea
of intimidating a man with my body
and
refusing to move out of the way when one walks towards me, and he, so confused,
often ends up crashing right into me
or clipping my shoulder -
So I
sculpt myself out of fired up clay and harden harden harden; no more stumbling,
and I drag the 20 kilos from the rack and grin when I play with it,
because I love the idea
of interrupting a man with my body
and
expanding myself on the tube when one sits next to me with his quads spilling out,
elbows kissing mine -
I can’t help it! It’s almost seductive, the ambush as I tense, push, nudge, gently forcing him back into his borders,
and sometimes we battle in furious silence
his biceps straining, anger biting into my skin,
I can practically hear him screaming
who the fuck do you think you are?!
As I open the world with my thighs; I drink steel,
because I love the idea
of silencing a man with my body
and putting a hand on his shoulder to push him back into his seat at the bar
holding him there, like a threat, as she leaves,
and he wishes he could explode upwards and outwards
unused to being contained,
So I
clench the core of me and adore myself in the mirror, flexing, moulding, rewiring
I’m teaching muscle and limbs to dig in instead of shrink back:
put me up against that statue of David!
Someone told me he’s the ideal man and I have to laugh,
because not even this perfect man knows how to wetten domination and
silver it across your body like armour.
He thinks I workout, but the truth is I eviscerate,
so someone place a bet on me;
because I’ll fight him, and I’ll win.
ADORE ✨✨✨