You handle your body like a raincheck: useless now but maybe
you can save it for something better later.
You think of someone else, someone who used to love you, so often
that the phrase “jogging the memory” comes to mind;
wish your memory wouldn’t jog but run, run itself down into the ground
until it’s too exhausted to keep remembering.
And your heart is just a slot machine that dispenses love
at the price of losing all your hard-earned self-respect.
Kneecaps already creaking like an old attic floor
at the exact moment of getting up
which makes standing up for yourself that much harder.
Yet your body carried you here, like volcanoes bring fire down a mountain.
Cradled you inside its hammock of skin and bone;
its hands were the ones you held
when there were no one else’s to hold.
There are unlit matches in your throat that could burst into flame
at the sound of your beautiful voice.
And every tattoo traced into your skin, well,
tattoos remember when everyone else forgets.
They wanted to be there, a part of you,
because they heard something singing inside your skin
and knew it would be worthwhile
to listen a little longer.