“You might not have used that word for it; you might not have the words for it; you might not be able to put your finger on it. Feminism can begin with a body, a body in touch with the world, a body that is not at ease in the world; a body that fidgets and moves around.”
Sara Ahmed
I.
It begins with a body, your body
about four kilograms, with wrinkled fingers, swelling toes expanding
out of miniature green converse high-tops and
a belly that caves in at four, shrivelling
bones gradually protruding, wriggling out from tender pink flesh,
until the reflection in the mirror responds; reconfigures
carving new forms from old materials,
like the way your wild curls flattens, lettuce in a day-old sandwich
sitting in the sun
or the way your breasts inflate,
balloons blown up overnight with air pumps from the garage
learning to collect blood in public washrooms, dabbing away
little crimson dots,
and the hourglass birthmark on your left thigh, a cluster of speckles
clouding your vision
and dark chocolate eyes melting
under the supervision of black discount frames
pushed up
by bitten fingers and calloused palms and pinkies not quite straight,
mimicking the slight curve in your hips and buttocks,
indented by a billion microscopic asteroids, having retreated back to the galaxies before impact
fingers and toes and belly and lettuce and balloons and eyes and hips and buttocks
amounting
compiling to five-and-a-half feet,
five bags of ten-pounds potatoes from Costco
these are declarations of a body
your body.
II.
A body in touch with the world,
is the way bodies touch, the way bodies love,
the way your body fall in love with touch and
the way your body falls in love with the touch of the world.
is the way … you cry at the sight of cartoons and claps of thunder
but chuckle at cartoon thunder, sprawled in a passed-down red cape
little red ridding hood wriggling across cream tiles in the kitchen,
of a mahjong house and mahjong beds and mahjong people,
constant deafening clicking
like giant fruit flies nibbling your ears, nibbling
pineapple buns on your uncle’s lap,
your bony fingers digging into tired shoulders, sniffing in aftershave.
is the way… you hold an earth worm in sixth grade,
pink flesh slithering across shaking hands caked with speckles
of Campbell’s tomato soup with extra black pepper and no grilled cheese,
because you ask your mother why you eat steamed rice every day, and
canned soup is all you can cook when
walking back to school, socks soaked from the rain, icy toes
running from wriggling soil and that girl from Venezuela
during recess, giggling in Spanish.
is the way... you packed a suitcase in late August and
dyed your hair crimson in early September
cramming your mother’s leather boots in an olive duffle bag
attempting to clear domestic security with
wriggling bodies in your luggage,
especially when sitting in your favourite café and the sunlight floods your face, so
you bury yourself in sentimentality and vintage shops,
thinking the circle under your eyes explicate the Sartre under your Americano.
is the way you realize a body...
is the way you fall, out of touch, out of love with the world,
like spontaneously falling down a hill, covered with pinecones and chocolate syrup
because the way you fall is sticky and sweet and prickly all at once
and you cannot seem to remember,
how you got to the bottom of the hill and pissed yourself in your 1972 Levis
liquid streaming down your legs, gathering a little dark pool
in your hands.
III.
A body not at ease in the world
is how you pick off pinecones and chocolate syrup,
while walking home, shivering from mid-autumn rain
having thrown away your Levis and underwear and...
licking chocolate off your urine-stained hands to keep off starvation
though this is a mild metaphor in comparison to the sensations in your body
like comparing getting hit by a cargo truck to
travelling to a bridge every night waiting to jump off,
waiting for death to wait for death;
a hospital waiting room that leads you to another waiting room,
like being birthed to an absent mother and running out of milk
like being put in a pink dress without being asked, laying in the hospital crib
like being forgotten in a mahjong den, screaming on a tattered leather couch
like being taunted by pre-schoolers while walking home alone
like being ridiculed in your passed-down school uniform, little holes sprinkled
like being mocked for offering a homeless man coins stolen from wallets
like being told you need a skirt to be a girl
like being forced to play piano in a tutu with your legs crossed
like being told the best thing you can do with your life is to win a pageant
like your relatives squinting at your new shape, frowning at billowing breasts and curves
like your friend teaching you to hide
like your father’s penetrating gaze
like picking up wood shavings off the dining room floor, shattered chair in the corner,
like sobbing on basement carpet with ice over your splintering lips
like telling you it’s your fault
like self-inflicted pools of purple-brown under your long-sleeved shirts
like little streams of crimson on your wrist
like rivers of crimson on your wrist
like the middle-aged men that jeered at you in an alleyway, blocking the exit
like the woman who cornered you at the bar, insisting you go home with her
like the man who followed you from the subway station, hands stroking over his sweatpants
like that time he locked you in the car after asking what you would do if he raped you
like that time he pushed you on the bed and pressed a pillow over your head for too long
like your own mother calling you a slut
like a metaphor that is not at all a metaphor; a simile that is not a simile
no matter how much you want it to be
like knowing that your body is at war, or rather
knowing that your body is at war
knowing that there is no such thing as true love
when it concerns the touch of the world
knowing there is only a mildly metaphorical violence and
knowing there is real violence.
IV.
A body that fidgets and moves,
squirms and shifts, wriggles and stirs,
and otherwise forces you to
dig up metaphors and similes to define the sensations in your body
otherwise forces you to
purchase army trousers from an underground thrift shop
and Sun Tzu from a second-hand bookstore
it is not unlike
the way Hitler mobilized a genocide
or the way America hired capitalism’s most eligible married bachelor
it might be distasteful to compare yourself to Nazis
but distaste is the least of your worries
when starting a world war non-ironically is on this year’s agenda
and not even United Nations can stop you from invading,
every memory of cuts and wounds on your body
when you are still pulling out wood splinters and tying towels around your wrist years later,
when you sit with a shot of whiskey every time you remember
the word
slut
shooting out of your mother’s mouth like bullets from your father’s automatic rifles
slut… with a three-round internal magazine
now you drink a bottle of Glenlivet, swing bats at anyone that approach unannounced
now you carry a sword and hand grenades to upset the general populace
now you maintain a scowl to complete your signature outfit
now you know you have to
now you know you have no choice
slam the door if anyone says hello with incorrect intonation
cry at the neighbourhood fruit stand if the cashier is brash with you
lock your family in the basement if they make another remark about refugees
scream if a man’s first words to you include the phrase ‘good-looking’ or ‘nice rack’
draw blood if you are hurt
an eye for an eye
an arm for an arm
a heart for a heart
a life for a life
this is not bitterness, but rather
it is the highest form of justice …
you have to strategize as if you are Kanye West taking down Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Awards
you have to prepare as if you have signed up for a lifetime membership of high intensity interval training and commit to some neon leg warmers
you have to thrash as if possessed by the spirit of a fifteenth-century witch burning at the stakes cursing short bald men in tights and frilly blouses
you have to chant the entirety of the Communist Manifesto while getting fucked at a glacial pace in the university library
you have to sacrifice yourself every night at local cult rituals, laying naked on scorched grass just so you can write poetry about it
it is the highest form of justice…
to start a war against the world
it is a one-woman operation
and you hope you can make Sun Tzu proud.
Cecily Ou
Cecily Ou is writer, curator, and independent textile practitioner based in the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations in Tkaronto. She is beginning her fourth year in the Visual and Critical Studies program at OCADU, where she is on the advisory committee of Onsite Gallery. Her practice is focused on community-based projects, de-centralized arts production, and the insurgent influence of craft media within cultural institutions. Recent publications are found in The Senses and Society and Blackflash Expanded. She is currently the programming assistant at the Textile Museum of Canada, operations manager at Sur Gallery, and co-curating the window gallery of Gallery 1313 in association with WIAprojects, a feminist arts informed research and practice program.
Works Cited
- Ahmed, Sara. “Feminism is Sensational,” In Living a Feminist Life, Duke University Press, 2017, pp. 21-42.