Caroline Shepherd
Body Positivity
This is the body I was born with and will die in! Thrilling!
To already know the thing I’m going to spend the rest of my life with
just me and this bratty flesh sitting around
shamefully listening to the new Selena Gomez single ’til it’s all over
I mean, these arms!!!
The ones I was born with that stretched and grew but still
remained mine, attached to the same shoulders
collar bones still sticking out like a bow tie
And my teeth! Horror movie material!!!
All sat up in my skull when I was born, biding their time
waiting to slither down and oust the kid stuff
the supervillains of the mouth
Then my hair! Dead and growing!
Advancing from my skull in heroic free-fall
Always making me look like I’ve just shoved a fork in a power socket
and then decided to leave the house anyway
All this and keeping me living!
Remembering to blink and bite and bleed
on cue and unnoticed, as I barrel on through my life
Oblivious and probably eating chips
My body! Holy shit!
Living luck, primal magic, once and never again
politely keeping me alive
while I spent so much time being awful about it, aloud, in front of people
I take it back
All of it, even the jokes
To be this fast and fleeting and full of blood
What a dumb miracle. Thank God. Thank God.
Caroline Shepherd is an honours student at Victoria who has been published in Mimicry, Starling and Stasis. She gets big library fines but other than that means well.