Shahd Alshammari - Two Poems

Body Breaks and Vows 

Holding you closer 

while the body breaks 

Helping you find your feet 

while I lose my way 

Handing over 

a life 

Hunched and crumbling 

by  disease 

I have had more years in a disabled body

and you are so new to it 

So confused  

Holding you closer 

while the body breaks 

Helping you find your feet 

while I lose my way 

Handing over 

a life 

Hunched and crumbling by disease 

I have had more years in a disabled body and you are so new to it 

I want to help you with the messiness 

Allow you to

Un-Do

“It’s okay to let go,” I whisper in your ear

while my heart clings to yours 

lying through my teeth 

to help you on your way 

Way way way harder 

to love you this way 

I promise to live with your breath and your blood pulsating through 

I promise to find a way 

The world has its ways with the body 

But I will stay and you will go 

I will always love your body and your ways

Whose Body Again?

I carry your heart – No wait, that’s not my line.

You carry my body with you, wherever you go.

We (not I, I already know it all, not because I’m a know-it-all like you say, but because I do know the ins and outs of my body)

try to make sense of the madness of the body 

this body, that body

That body, this, it – whose body again?

Mine.

I look down at my hand, dancing, not like Wordsworth’s daffodils

there is nothing Romantic here.

But there has to be something to romanticize,

something to inspire,

and something to translate.

It is a body I cannot translate for you, although you want to learn all the signs

You say you believe in it

You have ‘faith’ in me, in all that I say and do.

and yet

you weren’t born in this body,

and yet

you want to occupy the same space,

just because you  believe

I am not sure you belong here.

Wasn’t Sontag right? We belong in different lands.

Illness and disease,

Lifelong love,

But still,

my body,

Even if you carry it with you.

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Shahd Alshammari is the author of Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness (Feminist Press, NYC) and Confetti and Ashes: Reflections on Wellness (Yoda Press). She teaches literature, poetry, and creative writing in Kuwait.