BODY IMAGE Poem: Dying Mother Lies, by Madelyn Scholle

If you try to make it pretty
The same hands that gesture and laugh about the ugly
Will soon rot with the rest of a dying thing
It’s killer: the mind

Harshness is my Achilles heel
and tendons, like ribbons, tie into knots
A child cries in the corner because the indifference towards yourself will reflect
to her: a chip off the shoulder of a sour thing forming
And one day the empty pit in your stomach will be a hole in the ground
Open mouth and hollow eyes turned outward as tears drip
upon wilted flowers
everyone else tried to water

Vulnerability is a stake that may save you
Once: cut through the dirt of your backyard, a placeholder for promises
Twice: you can tell the truth now, you’ve faced it alone long enough

Illness isn’t always the initial cause of loss
Letting it simmer in conditions that feed a virus with no treatment
that is what bites
If you saw someone suffering like this, would you leave the hospital bed with no remorse?

And yet we put makeup on the graying skin of a still-alive heart
Cover up concern with words like “healthy” and praise
Fragile bones don’t hold up under pressure
And can’t hold through the night anymore
You wake up frigid, three times

Your first fear responses never included the mirror
or swallowing dinner
At some point it has to be enough
Enough to give up the treachery done
as your body keeps score

It has never been a pretty thing to decay
the realization of this hounds upon your head
Let it be the thing that saves you