an ode to stretch marks (and other alien life forms)

like rivers running down the
banks of my breasts
the intimate corners of my thighs
like the zebra’s stripes I so
ardently admired in my youth
each one signifying one more
moment one more breath one more
evidence of puberty’s biting wit
in making me a Woman before I ever
saw one in myself
(before others saw within
me the Woman I would
grow to be)
which leads me to my current incarnation
these rivers carved within my tissue
run deep and ragged and long,
some faint streams others oceans in themselves
each one ushering in a new me
as I learned what a Woman was
Supposed to be—
quiet demure a thing of beauty
an Object to cherish while it retains its luster
oiled and
plucked and
inherently somehow bettered
no longer a body but a showcase
a trophy for its owner and her owner—and a
woman is nothing but an
advertisement for some skin care line
minivan shopping mall plastic surgeon
white bread peanut butter
all-american
lifestyle
what they sell you in a woman is a lifestyle
values traits and physicality hand
picked for your enjoyment
never challenging you
sharpening you
only agreeing with you
until you lose your essence too
that’s what they sell you in a woman—
which leads me to my current incarnation
these rivers carved within my tissue
carve within my heart a new
yearning a new
lust for learning
a new
way of life to combat that
which seeks to make
my sex into profit
my sex into a commodity
bought and sold for pennies
those who seek to tell me
my stretch marks
aren’t a think of beauty
they are in fact a problem
here, you poor young thing
here, let me fix that for you
and fifteen serums
seven diets
four permanents
two layers of nail lacquer
and one eternity later
I am no longer a Woman
only a Doll
some window display for the
faint of heart whose conditioning means they
cannot understand or
maybe just cannot handle
what it means to love
a Woman and I
I am all
Woman
in this body I breathe deeply
I feel deeply
I am, deeply
passionately, unequivocally, unrestrainedly, unabashedly
Woman
I am
without apology or philosophy or
theology or prophecy defining me,
without chronology or history or
any other -ology interrupting the flow of
me, a girl of nearly eighteen
darked eyed and beautiful in all my
stretched and marked
glory, in all my purple-red
magnificence
purple is the color of royalty, you know
and I am the Queen of
my soul and my body—
heart and flesh and sinew—
ever follicle freckle scar
every cell
and its infinite capacity for
warmth richness vibrancy
all twisted into a cacophonous symphony
of all that comprises the
Woman
in me