I pinch my arm
As if just by pressing I could shrink my flesh
Step on the scale
As if I were stepping off the gangplank
Every Monday morning, into the deep.
Every week the same cycle
I wish I was smaller
I wish I was happier
I long for the day I finally get to live
In the body I was supposed to have
But
Longing is not living
My body is here
Now
She has carried me
Through love and loss
Through triumph and heartbreak
This body bears the tracks of my tears
Knit into my skin, carved into my bones
By my mother
And her mother before her
This generational millstone
This wicked inheritance
It’s time to lay this burden down.
Kondwa Rayne (née Thawethe), born in Zambia, separated from Zambia’s colonial rule by one generation, grew up on the shores of Dar Es Salaam and the bustling metropolis of London. As an adult, she has settled in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom. As a young girl, she found solace in words, an avid reader and writer. Now 25 and having completed her formal postgraduate education, she is continuing her informal education in earnest, seeking to see the world as it was, as it is and as it could be, and ever attempting to capture it in poetry. Her work can be found on instagram @krwriting