Natasha Chiam

View Original

This Body of Mine.

The subject of all these ridiculous metaphors.

My body does not know nuance.

In the parlance of the day, it has ZERO CHILL.

It is not moving gently with the tides of aging.

My menstrual cycle is a raging typhoon, wreaking havoc on the beaches of my body.

Rivers burst forth from me, cascading through the dying landscape of my reproductive system.

Medicine works about as well as pixie-dust for the darkness-seeking, whole being migraines that last 24 hours and respond only to sleep.

A sleep riddled with the lucid dreams of a brain on overdrive and a body with a faulty transmission.

Once we would say, “we don’t sweat, we glow”? If that’s still the case, this body is glowing like a goddamn nuclear reactor about to blow. And it does not care who it takes out when it does or who perishes is the subsequent fallout.

There is a new shape to this land of mine as well, the landscape is changing along with the infrastructure and there are days when management just can’t keep up or cope.

Hairs sprout like stalks from the edge of my chin - curling up under the surface and then springing forth like an awkward newborn giraffe, long and unseemly.

This body of mine takes pills and use creams and ointments filled with all the things that are slowly being drained from it. I know this is a losing battle…

And yet, I keep fighting the ultimate enemy: time.

So, NO, this body of mine is not going gently into that good night

Trust me Mr. Thomas, she sure as hell is

RAGE, rage {ing} against the dying of the light.

And good Goddess above is it ever exhausting.

N~