I try hard to love this body despite all its many aches and ailments; I really do. But sometimes it’s hard not to wish for something different. Sometimes I want bones that glow warm like honey. Skin covered in lichen like a rock might be, a little less sensitive, a little less exposed. Connective tissue golden and fluid as autumn sun. I want a liver gleaming like a reishi mushroom, that feeds on everything decaying in me. I want mitochondria like lightdrunk moths, alight with a seeking, boundless energy. I want a brain like a tealgreen riverpool aglow in the mossy sanctuary of my skull. I want a tongue like a dragonfly, light and agile and precise. I want legs as steady and sturdy as white pines. I want shoulders soft like wet beach sand and arms that dance with the long grace of humpback fins. I want a pelvis generous and restful as a bird’s nest made of grass and mud and horsehair. I want a neck that flows like the curve of a grosbeak wing. I want feet like plantain that find their way everywhere and anywhere. I want muscles strong as nettle fibers braided into rope. I want a throat open like a grotto, hips ripe as rosehips that sway like willow branches. I want a heart like a blooming peony or a broken geode, as bright as Sirius or sunflare, strong like a thunderstorm. I want a body made of cedar, of bull kelp, of sky. I don’t mean that I want to be beautiful, because all beings of this world are already beautiful in their own way. What I want is to be something vital, something vigorous and vibrant. Something that could easily and endlessly feast on the sweet, lush marrow of this life.

Danielle Gauld (she/her) lives with her partner and their cat, Juniper, on the edge of the Coast Mountains and Salish Sea, on the unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Watuth), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations (colonially known as Vancouver BC, Canada). Danielle is neurodivergent and disabled by chronic pain and illness, experiences that much of her poetry draws on.

Instagram: @wildbluegrace