Becoming Invisible

a poem about the effects of abuse on self-esteem and body image

Becoming Invisible

 

I consumed only the exhalations of nightjars and fruit bats,

believing that if I became thin enough, no one would see me

and thus hidden, I might be safe.  I dressed in the colors of leaves,

wind and sky, learned to walk barefooted, the way I imagined

Indians walked, silently, never cracking a twig.  I let my hair

grow long and disappear into the breeze.  I avoided markets

and parties, slipped wraithlike through the city streets

at the time of night when all cats and tramps looked

as grey as I felt.  With eyes cast down, I never

looked anyone in the face.  But I discovered that the thinner

I grew, the more often people noticed me, men with eyes

of lust, women with eyes of envy, jealousy and anger.

It was then I gave up imbibing only the song of the nightingale,

the breath of owls, the chorus of tree frogs. I began to eat

puddings and bon bons, Twinkies and Nutella.  I expanded

to the size of Gargantua and took on the expression of a toad.

Although toads charm me, with their wry smiles, poisonous,

hallucinogenic skin and round warty bellies, I finally got my wish.

I walk anywhere anytime and am less visible by far

than if a chesterfield picked up its skirts and ambled among us.

Wishing suddenly to be truly, deeply seen, the wisp within me

weeps and beats small fists against my thickened ribs,

struggles to free herself, but it is too late.  I cannot shed

the protective profusion of flesh to release my heart, return

to the mountains and wilds that once gave me sustenance,

or continue breathing.

 

Mary Stebbins Taitt

20141003-1151-2a, 21040929-1601-1d, 20140929-1306-1st

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

because self image is a sortilege of sorts, a foretelling of all that is painfully sensitive,
it becomes a manner of holding your breath. Not how long you can do it since you still
have to breath,; not eventually but ultimately. But body image is a sort of sorcery, that power
that's gained by the control of evil spirits. In Ellisons "invisible man" his invisibility was the
tending, dull un-awareness of those that never missed him. And by that definition, we
will all become invisible if others can plague us with such control.

I love the self-deprecation of this, and its reflective anthropology. Then the realization
that like Selene you shined like the Greek goddess of the moon.

well done.
dana