No Docile Bodies [melissa word]
docile bodies
in free fall
everyday I’m thinking about the actions I can take to get myself free
to find my ground again
a remembering
a rewilding
everything is a healing process
the effort of not doing, of letting the body be, letting the process unfurl
seeking release and relief from the jaws of these systems of harm
intersecting and desiccating as they are wont to do.
my voice teacher says to us Jesus Christ, people, find the fucking ground of your voice to save your life right now
there is so much to mend
what is the gospel according to all free people of the future?
people who are not afraid of their voices
for this month at floromancy,
let us orient ourselves towards
the granular, everyday efforting towards liberatory recovery practices,
for the individual and for the collective.
we’ll hear from folks who’s radical and unabashed self-love
rattles the cages and rings the bells
of freedom
at all costs.
what are the actions of coming to your own rescue?
restoring your humanity and
agency in a place committed to having us feel deficient.
what are the tools looking like right now,
intuitively drafted and forged by
our own hands and hearts?
our no’s make room for our yeses to thrive
no more docile bodies
I’ve been working on undomesticating
my voice lately.
I ask myself often
what my life would look like
if I could heal the devastation
that southern white womanhood
has had
on my throat, my power, my agency, my lineage.
a blood memory
what if my voice wasn’t relied on as a means of coercion or manipulation or selling something?
what if every woman in my family
felt heard, felt safe to say what she saw?
what if I never learned how to hide behind my voice?
add a lilt here, a sugared inflection there
how pleasant
how nice
obedient bodies akimbo
what if I could extract myself from likability equations?
from the chronic compulsion to curate the self for others’ benefit?
can I locate pleasure in my body right now?
like a heat-mapping, an
intuitive body cartography
are my feet touching the floor? where does the ground of my voice live?
healing shame and silence and a preoccupation with codes of conduct,
with our perceived palatability, with being right.
these are the fruits of this brutal place—
winnowing knife in hand
I am the farmer and the wheat
sorting grain from husk
we extract ourselves from the wreckage.
what fruits of ourselves are we fighting for?
out here rewilding, resisting the machinations that make bodies docile and then thrust them into
free fall.
find the ground. a prayer for
brave, unruly, vivacious and messy bodies everywhere.
Radical Bodies, rooted.
deeply planted and plugged into the Earth. more alive and more willing everyday, glory be.
