Cheekbones

*At a body workshop at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, we were given time to compose a poem about a body part and the opinions protected onto it.

Right angles
Straight
Defined
There is no curvature to me that I see
Although there is a window
Sun shining bright unlike any other
I am still a jail cell
There is no smell
The air stale to the aroma of the outside
I know it smells beautiful out there
but in here I feel enclosed
Like
Everyone will walk past and marvel at the history lived inside me
This
A dank room
Like now that I am contained
Unoccupied
A symbol of a past pain made beautiful illuminated by this radiant sunlight
They can touch me on the outside
Fingering me on the inside
It's ok
I am used to the pinches
I wonder
Do they feel the bricks in my smile
The paint peeling every time I flex against myself
You file past me
Wait your turn to peer inside the tiny viewhole
Do you always mean to only look straight ahead
At the sunlight
At the window
Are you afraid to look down
You don't notice the scratch marks at the base of the wall
I've clawed so long to escape
I pace
Instead of sleep on the dusty mattress that my father gave me
Sleep under the wool blanket my mother knitted for me
All you admirers
Marveling at my construction
Chipping into me with every step in front of my door
I am just one room
In the hallway of this aging museum
This renovated prison
Corner wing leaning against and into and onto a whole too thin and big and wide to be called a prison museum attraction
How much was your ticket?
Who told you you could come?
Who lets you in?
Who keeps the keys?
Why won't you come in and finger these walls
Burning from the sunlight you admire
And look in the mirror