My body feels to me like a monument in its own right...

My body feels to me like a monument in its own right
Tall and visible and unique
Who knew the challenges it would face
Given expectations of others
Given treatment as a communal object
It bears such a weight as a thing both pressed and thinned
And starving for its own air in a place vapid and filled with antiquities •

Poem from Acres of Shadow
© Aisha Tariqa Abdul Haqq Publishing
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