Tanya Keenan
Can You Take It?
(For all the young women and men I’ve counseled)
Part 1
It feels like ants in your head
Crawling
Scraping
Struggling for release into the light,
Growing too big in the dark.
Pain settles in the pit of the stomach
Numbed by the rush of days
Relieved by moments of clarity
Deepened by memory and dimly lit visions of the future.
It spreads from there
Into aching bones
Into growing spine
Into maddened mind
Piercing, finally, the heart….
This body cannot contain
The rage and confusion inside
Bubbling and boiling,
Threatening to overflow.
It’s too big to live inside.
It’s too loud to stay in my head.
And finally, it comes,
Roaring,
Seething,
A wave of harsh cruelty,
From outside in
And back again.
I broadcast my unease with the world,
I make a billboard of my skin,
I tell you exactly what the problem is,
If you can bear to listen.
So I starve this body
To show you that this world is spinning out of control
To show you that you that I haven’t got the means to contain it all
To show you that I can at least control this.
So I binge and purge
To show you that this world does not contain enough to feed me
To show you that I reject the scraps you offer me
To show you my desperation.
So I cut this body
To show you that I’m alive
To show you the scars inside
To show you how this box you’ve put me in
-----Scrapes against my skin as I grow out of it, and into my own light.
So I numb this body
To show you that I know what is to come
To show you the natural reaction to terror
To show you your own doctrine.
So I couple this body
To show you that I know union is possible
To show you that I believe in love
To show you that I don’t know if love believes in me,
To show you that love and death frantically hold hands in the sweaty dark.
I don’t want to emerge from this chrysalis
A stunted butterfly
Afraid to fly.
But I am surrounded by stunted butterflies,
Afraid to beat their wings one time and change the world.
I am surrounded by dulled memory
Of what it is like to look upon this world with young eyes
And see the horror of my inheritance
As I mourn the loss of wonder.
The cycle begins again.
Do you have a heart big enough to take it?
Can you look at my body and know what it says to you?
Can you hear these messages I’m screaming?
Can you take it?
Part 2
Sweet sting of blade on flesh,
Sweet release, blood pooling up,
Distracting me, expressing me.
A red song singing my pain
Its beauty addicting me to more,
Testing me.
How much can I take?
How much can everyone take?
The blade wants more.
I distractedly wonder
How to make curved lines on my body
With a straight blade.
It pushes me for a moment
Out of the vortex of pain
Out of my screaming heart
And into my head
Where I can gaze in grim fascination
As my skin indents where the blade stung
Shocked for a few moments,
Then rising up and turning pink
In angry rebuttal.
And then comes the blood
Unwillingly meeting air
And my dark satisfaction
In tiny droplets
That ooze so slowly.
At least I’m alive
And can still feel the sting
Of a blade separating skin from skin.
If it hurts, then I still feel.
And this madness of pain far outweighs
The numbness that scares me more.
At least this isn’t death
Which means
There might still be hope.
Did I pass the test?
© 2009 Tanya Keenan