Featured Poem of the Week

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Lowen Puckey 

An advocate for mental health, disability, and chronic illness–she pens her words carefully but manages to add so much strength to them too. She is an active contributor to A Cornered Gurl and is giving our little community lessons in life through words. The poem that I have selected to feature is entitled, “Lines On My Body.” It is an amazing flow of words and ends solidly too. Everything about it makes me happy to be a writer of the genre, poetry. And now, “Lines On My Body.”

Lines On My Body

Maud Wagner, the United States’ first known female tattoo artist. wikicommons

I want these lines on my body
showing my journey,
expressing my womanhood–
bold patterns of identity
from a feminine hand.

But there is part of me
that shouts don’t do it!
No man will touch you–
(not this man but maybe the next).
No job will have you–
(not this job but maybe others).

So, perhaps, like that poem about
the old lady wearing green shoes
(or was it purple? or red?)
because she finally felt free
to do so — perhaps, like her, I’ll
finally cover myself in the beautiful
images of my life when I’m sixty;
when I don’t need to care about
the bank manager anymore, or
the boyfriend. Maybe then I can say:

I don’t have a photo album or
a Facebook page — don’t need it.
It’s all on me. Part of me. Come.

See me.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.

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