Annabel Banks1)Every day I will touch my feet. I will touch my feet and think of the lands I have walked, the seas I have allowed to curl and cool, taking heat from me back to the wrenched-open mouths, the birthing trenches. I will touch my feet.2)Every day I will touch my thighs. I will touch my thighs and recognise the strength to hold myself up, to rise from knees that grew sore with waiting, the heaviness of other hands on my shoulders. I will touch my thighs.3)Every day I will touch my navel. I will touch my navel and thank my mother, and think of that long-burnt impermanent representation of a permanent connection. Her heat that warmed my tiny frozen waves. Now I breathe alone, I will touch my navel.4)Every day I will touch myself between the legs, an owning stroke of peace-filled satisfaction. I will touch all the parts of me that I choose not to name, as Latinate medical sterility, Anglo-Saxon earthy terms, porny feline associations and pseudo-passive baby talk do not do justice to this centring. Labia, clitoris, pudenda, pussy, fanny, box, vagina, vag and v-j. I will touch myself, and my name is not cunt. 5)Every day I will touch my head. I will touch my face and feel the bones, the hormone- shaped clarity of cheekbone and jaw, the brow that shields my consciousness from direct blows of brick walls and glass ceilings. I will run my fingertips up into my hair, the wanton Eve, the hysterics flag. I will let my hands hold my skull, the smaller skull with the smaller brain for a smaller person, and feel my intelligence and talent sear my palms. I see Ohms Law, Youngs Modulus, the Schwa, the thousands of pages I have touched with my eyes, and now my Broca and Wernicke glow in the dark as I get my words down, get them out.6)Every day I will write, with my mind, if not with pen, pencil, keyboard, blood from a vessel popped as I head-butt another unexpected wall, feet firm, thighs strong, still breathing. Every day I will write and tell the truth, about me, about what my precious eyes see and my prized mind knows. Every day.
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