Siobhan Knox
Words and bodies in motion

Own

By on September 19, 2011

Who owns my body?

And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.
And you stare at me.

And you whisper obscene dreams at me and I smell your breath
and it smells like death and cigarettes and sleaze and

‘Hello BABY…how are you today?’

And your eyes are inside me. And your eyes are inside me…
and I can’t see my future your gaze just blinds me
and all of this just serves to remind me

Who owns my body?

I was born without a body and I was born without a face
and all that’s ever been under my mind
is constant changing mass of space
I walk unaware of the motion of my body as I sink into the future
think my feet just go on plodding

down the pavement down the street
and those men stop and stare

but I’m still not sure what at …or what is even there

But I know their eyes are inside me, their eyes are inside me
I can’t see my future their gaze just blinds me
and all of this just serves to remind me
that if I even had a body it’d be there, in its primary

paleness for YOU
on show for YOU
its all for YOU
Because your eyes have penetrated what I
never knew.

Who owns my body?

And I had a baby torn from my womb
I was told it was nothing was told its too soon
to tell if it feels – ‘it can’t feel its just cells!’

A procedure they tell me, a procedure that swells
and it sucks and it aches.
It aches to remember.
It aches to remember how I don’t remember,
pumped full of sweet dreams

My mind again lost…while my poor body bleeds.
and after so blissed out, high as a kite
I joked with the nurse that I was ‘feeling alright’
Till through my laughter as she took my pulse

I felt a wave – felt my body convulse
I was crying.
So mournfully. So painfully. Wailing.
While my mind watched on, detached, bewildered and straining

To understand.
To get it.
I can’t get it.
Can’t forget it.

So fuck it.
We’re all just disconnected.
Just little pieces being collected.

Where do we come from?
And what it our fight?
Who sold us out?
Who bought the rights?

Where do we come from?
What are our roots?
We GM contaminate all of the fruits
that you bear
then we dare
sell you them back
dried and deflated in small plastic packs.

Who owns our bodies?

I demand a full reclamation and not just that but a fucking celebration.
Reclaim our bodies from their oppression
and connect to our minds
get out of depression

And prise their lecherous eyes from your thighs
and burn away the lies of the advertising spies
Of the mighty men who mutate their muscles mounting malnourished
mummified Maybelline muffs and minges – unhinge it!

Rip open the heart and reclaim the beat
and burn up the banks and reclaim the streets…
Reclaim our land and reclaim our fields from the percentage who own
and would never think to yield

For while they own, they rape and destroy
but if we reclaimed we’d be fucking with joy.

I want to place my feet on the ground
and know how my feet feel and how the ground sounds.

Fuck disconnection and fuck resurrection
of movie star tombstones selling perfection.

I want to feel my land in my hands
And I want to heal and to understand
And I want to connect my body and mind
…and I want to forgive
and see what I find

I don’t want to be blind to the whole of mankind

Who owns my body?

I do. It’s mine.

Posted in: Poems

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