Unbend you straight

Text of audio:

She places her hands on me

Without asking and pulls at this bent body,

These legs the site of her expertise.

She has studied my affliction well

She knows these bodies

And how to fix me.

‘’Be strong’’ she says,

‘’You are a brave child,

Show me how brave you can be’’.

Breath held.

Teeth clenched.

She begins her work on me.

I am not this body, she cannot find me.

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She lays beside me

Fingers tracing my bends and curves

‘’I love the way you move, your difference, uniqueness, you intrigue me’’

White teeth showing in the candle light

I fall

‘’it’s ok’’ she says

‘’relax, you’re beautiful’’

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‘’You don’t cry like the others’’

She says,

‘’Good girl,

We’ll make you normal,

Make you walk’’.

Her accent, this 5yr old cannot place, is thick, this pain thicker.

I breathe.

She teaches me how to draw

A thin cord away from my body

Holding it like a balloon,

Like a kite out the window

Where my eyes find the sky.

The pain distant now, I float above

Above how it feels

How it feels to really be inside myself

Far from these muscles which fight her unbending.

I am somewhere else.

Uncurl me,

This self so full of wrong and shame.

She finds me each day

And calls me in.

We began again

To try to straighten what belongs bent.

Control and tame this body,

Shame its movements.

There is hope in the fixing

Hope for acceptance,

For a ‘normal life’. 

I will grow into someone else.

A straight unbent woman on her wedding day,

Beautiful,

Normal,

Walking,

Wanted.

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She finds me this night

Unfurls me,

Desire filled fingers

Discover my strings,

Drawing me in.

She asks

‘’Is this is ok,
And this?

And this?’’

Waits…

Waits for eyes to say yes as well as mouth

Then she follows my winding tracks

Where no lover has walked before,

To hidden places,

Shame filled by another woman.

She brings them out slowly,

These tangled cords of self,

Turning them in the glow of soft light,

Small sounds,

 Breath.

‘’Breathe ‘’

She says,

‘’It’s ok’’.

Unraveled me

With your acceptance,

Watch me curl around you.

I think myself in love.

This space.

This body.

This night.

She finds the places that were never straightened

Too bent their natural state

Kisses them.

I am afraid they will hurt her, so strong the pain that hinds there.

She knows not what magic she is working,

With her slow and gentle hands

Her glowing body

Drawing out my light,

Calling it love.

This one my healer.

I can let go.

Be just as I am

Growing, un-normal, bent.