what is my opposition?

my womb is smothered in the virgin mary’s despair

there are no miracles marked by maternity, muddled and morphed by my mutiny

there used to be a calla lily and a hyacinth living in my belly

the former envied by the goddess, the latter revered by the god

both too beautiful for the body begotten by breath alone

no mother made me, no father wanted me

both discarded the person i aspired to be

so i lived simplistically and formlessly

but the gods believed in form and order

and i was a reckless thrill-seeker

so the gods invited me to poker and dealt me a bad hand

i played the fool and pretended i was there to lose

and i lost, grinning, foolhardy

then they called me a woman

they did not force upon me a role or a cloth

they did not force me to walk on my knees or pick the callouses off of my feet

they simply told me what i was

and everyone believed them

slice me open and you will discover that venus marked me for death

flay me and you will search for the remnants of the recklessness, the outcry, the revolution

and find your palms smothered in bright pink bloodstains, perfectly perfumed

bring me back, i shrieked, louder than the Furies, louder than the Sirens

but where had i come from?: this, said mockingly,

the world has not changed

and you have not come from anywhere but yourself

perhaps, they say, you were the one who was misaligned all along

no one would have believed you in the first place

you believed yourself to be in a world that would not take your body and deface it

i was no one’s opposition

yet, you have cast me in a position

that forces those eyes to trace my silhouette

in terms of a binary