Once I held my breath
And waited patiently
As though that would make me a saint
I rejected beauty where it was in the form
Of gruesomeness and pain
Thinking I could pull God apart
And discover her love
Somehow separate from the rest of her body
A body that I have begun
To know better now
Like I’d know my own
Aware of the places that hurt
And the places that excite and cry out in ecstasy.
Her body is perfectly flawed
And irrevocably Holy
Her beauty encompassing
All that is “pure” and all that is “lost”
And equalizing them with a single breath
A breath I do not hold so much any more
But savoir
With no attempts of capturing it
A breath that yields to every breath
That ever danced before or after it
Bringing me home to the oneness
Of her whole body
A body that begs to understand itself
The way I trace my abdomen and hips
With my fingers hoping to fully embrace
The magic and wonder
Of my seemingly separate body
Hoping to capture the whisper
Of my “highest” potential and grace
As if it weren’t marbled into my whole essence
As if I weren’t just another piece of her
Whole perfectly flawed body