Grandma whisked me away to the carnival
To see acrobats, lions, and contortionists,
To fill my skeletal body with buttery popcorn and deep-fried oreos.
Something to remember.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the strongman,
With bulging muscles and veins so obtrusive
I knew his whole body was pumping strength and could break me
Into thousands of pieces.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way the crowd screamed
Like his body was holy,
Carved from the bones of perished saints and filled with holy water,
An angel alive and in the flesh.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way my grandma turned her head away from me
And stared moon-eyed with admiration at him,
Forgetting me under the eclipsing light of all that
This man was that I could not be.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the feeling of my hands as I ran them over
My spaghetti arms and thin thighs, and
I flexed my abs, pinched them, clawed at them, punched at them
Hoping pressure would turn coal into a diamond.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way my eyes became kaleidoscopes
Whenever they looked at my own body,
As if I was in the house of mirrors and every part of me
Was distorted, too much and too little of what it should be.
I don’t remember any of it,
But my body remembers all of it.
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