The Body Maker

you made yourself a brand-new thing
each limb, every stretching finger,
is your fault.

you know, bodily,
exactly where femur attaches to flesh
because you sewed it there
with that needle in your thigh
and your persistent pressing down, filling up,
making it.

no one else but you can know
how it was supposed to be
and you’re making it,
your fault,
is your fault,
is your fault.

the dark pink lines on your skin are blooming
and you want more of them:
made perfect under the surgical hood,
blue dressing gown and perfect,
shining body,
red shining under morphine,
and remaking, and you agreed to it,

you want blue fingers taking out those squishy bits
and fuck, it feels good afterward,
when the tape comes off and the stitches dissolve
and fuck,
you made it even though it cost you.

every hair on your head is yours,
and you grow it out,
and you mean to,
and it frames your pretty, smiling face,
and your body is finally real, not like the movies
where they bend the bitch over and throw up
because they don’t like the body she made.

because that body you made
is your fault,
because that body you made
is your body,
is your body,
is your body.

and you can feel things with it,
fur on your arm,
cloth on your chest,
and it feels like it was supposed to
before your body was made.

and you can see out of it,
even though your long, black eyelashes get in the way,
heavy with cheap make-up,
things appear and they really appear;
all genuine-like,
like they’re not lying to you,
not at all like how it was
before your body was made.

but there’s no one to tell
because they’ve heard news of body makers
taking living bodies and skinning them, wearing it,
not knowing it’s your own skin that transformed,
hair poking out like antennae
searching for some divine frequency,
not at all your fault,
not your fault,
not at all.

but some have their bodies made by others
and they sit with it,
and in their sitting,
they decide this is the only way
that bodies are made.

and their bodies agree,
or they don’t,
like your body didn’t
before it was made.

and there’s no going back
because your body was made
indelible and final,
and perfect, forever perfect,
and you made it,
god believe it,

your body,
is your body,
made into your body.