PRIDE ISSUE: The Chest and the Heart

By Anya Shroff

The Chest and the Heart

by third year Ostara Maharaj

I fear my shoulders are too broad for my soul, 

that my chest pumps outwards when my heart should instead

My feet on the pavement i am pushed to see myself in maternal puddles of nature

My bones are encased in a pillow of skin that is sewed and stitched to cup the right crescents 

It stretches to delicate hands, fingertips supple with the spark of caring for someone else

Whose gaze am I using to find who I am?

I look for other natural forms to give my love 

Faces sharpened with life's virilities

Lips that taste of lustrous elements 

And hands whose joints hinge onto metal 

That leave them rutted with the wiles of a sturdy hold

Do I see these things in me?

My maturity calls for an ebb and flow 

Between the subject of my heart  

Or my own reflection 

My soul and the muscles under the flesh of my shoulders push, forcefully, upwards and out 

My chest puffs up, blood pumped

My heart beats for all forms

And grows fonder of the one sculpted in me