“My Body”
Joseph Brindley
Each step creaks louder,
shifts more beneath me.
The banister sighs
under the weight
of all I haven’t said.
December brings forty-five,
but my knees feel older,
my breath catches quicker –
not just from the climb,
but from years spent
holding myself underwater,
afraid to surface,
afraid of who might see me there.
I stand at the bathroom mirror,
towel tight around my waist,
skin pale beneath blue-cream lights.
I trace swollen reminders
of lymphedema’s claims –
legs etched with lines
I never asked for,
stories I never wanted to tell,
caked with blood and exposure.
There’s no bullet wound
from any war,
no trophy stitches from barroom nights –
just quiet accumulation
of safety,
of caution,
of not speaking up
or stepping out.
My eyes stare back,
dirty green I’ve never liked –
muddy ponds reflecting
everything I’ve avoided.
I have been gentle with myself –
perhaps too gentle,
letting fear carve me careful,
until the body in the mirror
became a stranger.
My hands are older now,
valleys of space slipping south
with every passing week, month,
year, regret, failure.
Roots in a ground I never loved,
years passing
like cars I never drove,
opportunities waving
from the rearview mirror,
growing smaller with time.
No friends here.
Family reduced to silence –
birthdays remembered by automated emails,
coupons for meals
I eat alone.
This was never meant to be home.
Sometimes, at night,
I still feel their hands
in shadows at the edge of sleep –
fingerprints embedded
like nails beneath skin.
Family who knew,
who chose silence and comfort
over safety,
over truth.
Over me.
One love, once:
psychopath eyes calm as winter lakes;
kindness worn as costume –
bruises left deeper than flesh.
They took what wasn’t given,
discarded me, broken fruit –
yet I stayed,
until they decided
even my brokenness
was too empty to keep.
What kind of broken
isn’t even enough
to hold the love
of a monster?
Therapy, now nineteen months deep,
my therapist gentle-voiced,
a man teaching me softly
I am more than hands on skin,
more than my actions and pain,
more than the blackness
pooled behind my chest –
now a dark charcoal,
lightened with tinges of hope.
A safe space: two canvas hammock chairs
I’m too heavy to try,
but maybe someday –
facing an off-white couch
hemmed by the metal tree
and scent of teas.
Four floors, up the sky,
creaking, cracking, elevator slow,
threatening to snap, plummet
into a pile of twisted rebar and dust –
the stairs too much for my body,
the lift too much for my nerve.
Terrified these swollen limbs
might one day fail me,
leave me stranded, stairs impassable,
hopeless and homeless and unseen.
I think of my desk,
large table in lieu of dining.
Manuscripts in my drawer
yellow like tea-stained teeth.
I moved here chasing a paycheck,
not a purpose –
now trapped,
a peace lily forgotten
under a close-curtained windowsill.
But tonight,
in this ordinary reflection,
something trembles –
leaves before rain,
sparks in cold ash –
a quiet ache,
a pull,
almost –
Courage comes slow –
as if asking permission
to believe I might deserve it.
The mirror softens,
the swollen scars, the heavy lines
forming a different kind of map –
roads yet unexplored,
routes away from regret.
What if,
instead of adding more silence,
I mark myself clearly
with proof I have tried?
What if these lines,
deepening along my forehead,
the heavy circles beneath my eyes,
are just first drafts?
What if this body,
so long held prisoner,
could become
a story written
in muscle, in voice,
in defiant, living ink?
My heartbeat, thundering so loudly,
I can feel it without touching.
Breath caught sharp and sudden –
panic attacks like memories,
severed hands grabbing from shadows,
without warning.
I trace flesh on my forearm
where fingers once bruised,
held me still,
stole safety I never reclaimed.
A stomach wound slow to heal –
open still, like questions unanswered,
or forgiveness not yet offered.
Tomorrow,
I might step outside –
feel sunlight on my skin,
meet the gaze of strangers
without flinching.
Maybe I will write,
fingers trembling on keys,
unafraid of rejection
that cannot leave
more emptiness
than silence already carved.
I hover fingers along
the marks I carry,
these scars of flesh,
scars of silence,
memories I never chose.
Each line –
an opportunity,
a story,
a breath,
a choice.
Maybe I’ll make new scars –
small cuts earned
by speaking,
by reaching out,
by stepping forward
instead of standing still.
I am not young,
but tonight,
for the first time in years,
I am not yet old.
I am breathing,
I am here –
in my body,
flawed, uncertain,
but mine.
I meet my own eyes
in the glass,
daring to recognize myself
as someone
worth wanting.
I am breathing,
I am here –
in my body,
scarred, imperfect,
but perhaps
still capable of catching
what I stopped chasing
long ago.
Tonight, now,
in this fragile moment
tenuous and fleeting,
stitched with hope and quiet,
I recognize myself for a moment:
someone worth choosing.
For the first time,
that feels enough.
