because old poems make excellent (and totally legitimate) posts. either that, or i'm exhausted

BODY AT REST

when i die, my body will be
bedded and buried, or burned
and scattered, and forgotten,
i hope. when they remember
my life it won’t be for my sex
and no one will care
if my stomach stood stiffly atop of my hips
or my belly lay lounging,
undisturbed and untamed.
they’ll forget that my body was
imperfect and messy, that some days
it seemed to be softer
than others. they won’t dwell
on the way my weight shifted around,
the way sometimes my shape
took up way too much space and sometimes
my flesh was reduced to
concave. i hope when i die
my body can rest, free
from the life it endured in my care.
and i hope when i’m gone
i’ll have given the world
something more to recall than
the skin i was in.