Body celebration

I admire those

Who dance

Run and

Sing

Those who move

And as I reflect on

Dreams I had

As a young girl

Images that display are

Myself as

A singer

Actress

Dancer

Athlete

Things that felt so real

Movements that my body still remembers

Joy that I still feel in the curl of my lips

Images that were never

Seen when my eyes opened

I thought that the celebration

The love

The attention

Is what drew me to those dreams

But now when I think about them

I see it as a level of ability

Of wishing that my body moved in those ways

And I think

How perhaps the celebration

Was of not only myself

But my body

That I was yearning

The spotlight

To illuminate

The outline of my body

The shapes I would make

The muscles that contract

Under my skin with

Undertones

Of red and yellow

Blood and gold

A spotlight

That I often shy away from

And I realize

That I have not celebrated my body

That during spurts

Of movement

I felt in my power

And through the reformation of muscle fibers

I felt connected with my ancestors

I felt connected

It is in that connection

That I realize how much I have been

Disconnected

I have been taught

That my body isn’t mine

Through messages

Audible and invisible

Like the waves that

Ignite our radios

Messages

Solidified

By terror

That haunts my body

Causing me to run

And pull away

Into my own mind