Sara Tracey

From Issue 5

Stella Teaches Me the Body

because we’ve all been loved & demolished                                                              
                                                        –Jan Beatty, “Shower w/notebook”                                                             

I have no interest in a body free from scars.
 
I want to know where you’ve been cut,
            where you first learned
                                     the taste of fire.
 
Once, I wanted tenderness/a boy
who would touch
my face
as if it were made of glass.
 
                           I will not break. My body    
                                                              was made to stretch.
 
I keep track of bruises in a spiral notebook.
            #217: knees against cement
            #329: I swear, he didn’t mean to…
 
                                     Good morning? I am black and blue.
                                     This is my body saying to me: no more.
                            Men are just flesh.
            They whisper my name
so no one knows they need me.
 
Forget propriety.
            I am not a vault.
What I take in I do not keep. Wear a hat/
tap shoes/boxing gloves.
Use a condom.
 
            I used to be afraid
            to say cunt, to say touch me here.
            I used to be afraid to say no.

                            The first man I loved taught me
to use my body for revenge.
            He never used his fists, but if you met him,
            you wouldn’t believe me.
                            When I broke my nose on Christmas eve
                                                                                               kissing
                                                      an icy patch of concrete,
                            my mother wanted to call the cops.
                            He kept me
                                          hungry/afraid
                                          but treated my body like a gift
                                                        he was forever unwrapping.
 
Once, I loved a man who couldn’t see me
            unless I crawled into his lap. Careless/reckless
                        a man with hands made for prayer
                        and demolition. I begged
                                    him to notice. I left my front door open
                                    so he could find me/enter/
                        where he wanted. When he was a child
                                    his father hung himself. When he was a child
                                    he learned how to leave people
                                                        wanting.
 
I used to want a man
            who could make me feel small,
            lift me like a gun.