HOUSE/HOME/BODY
house / as in home, as in a 2 up 2 down pebble dashed / cinderblock / tenement. as in ya gap tooth granny boilin’ jam jars / as in your mammy's cradled stomach. pad / as in / shelter / as in / refuge. two leak / popcorn ceiling / terracotta walls with fraiser on the big screen & your mamma need a man like niles. deserve a man like niles. home as / rest / as / sleep / as meat & two veg / as childhood, permanent. your mammys paid the bills. “with my new Office Job & no help from ur daddy.” direct quote. my mamma parrots this so often the Office Job seems to live in the house with us. seems to feast on ritz and smash. seems to sleep in mammy's bed, drapes itself over the dining room chairs. my mammy spends her pennies on sweet gum and blows bubbles bigger than me or rachel. our granny spends hers on potato waffles and a twenty pack of camel golds. she puff puff puffs slouched over the sofa with her mouth turned toward the window blowin’ clouds of smoke to the street and listens to the vinyl turnin’ the Jackson 5. my grannys got good taste. she howls along to whos lovin’ you like simon cowells scouting our ends and shes looking for a contract. rachel don't participate. till granny tells her those fine lines gonna settle if you keep on frowning, then she gets up and belts even bigger than the rest of us.
home / as in a body / as in my body / unsure & waiting / growing & wanting & learning. your body, my body the image of yours. the same rounded cheeks / square jaw / long fingers / arm hair & dimples. & ma, just know when you called yourself fat and tugged at your love handles i went to my room and tugged at mine too. i wore your leather trench and blew bubbles with your sweet gum. rachel walked in your heels. and we cried together under your sheets wondering if daddy left us because of the way our bodies looked. you said it so often it felt like gospel. i do not blame you for this. too round / too tall / big gob / & that other womans much smaller. much thinner. your daddy cant handle real women. So we tried not to become them. In the box room on heartcliff way / central square / where we learned to be small / feel small / closed our hands around our thighs & pressed until our fingers touched / the same way yours did, ma. this consequence of womanhood. till granny slaps our fingers raw & our grip becomes undone and all thats left are white thumb prints on pink skin -
final home. as in black box buried. as in ashes still not spread cause we cant part with them any more than she could part with us / home. as in me and rach begging ma for dominoes the night granny goes and shaming her when she comes back with frozen because thats how far the pennies stretched. how i still cant stomach that guilt. & granny still sleeps in the front room. ash tray perched atop her white marble box so she can still puff a camel, the way she would have wanted. & darkness. & stillness. & when me and rach are long gone but still feeling guilty for leaving and turning a room into a r o o m. spread out & stable. our mammas still sat at that mantel swapping out that camel gold like its a fresh red rose. white walls still stained with grannys jam / rach still cant bare to sit in her chair. hollow / empty / with the same sag from where she sat 10 years before. i survive in this body like its a house in heartcliff in 1999. that is to say, i want to erase every part of me that lives in that postcode. i am still learning to hold space for the parts of me i do not feel comfortable giving. i am still learning to sign off my emails, letters, poems with -
with all my love, always. & not,
sorry for the inconvenience.
Tori Wilder, 26, London - England ✯ TT: @torisstories8 ✯ BACK TO POETRY: OUROBOROS
“Tori Wilder is a twenty-six year old writer, poet and storyteller living and working in London. Her work explores intergenerational relationships, working-class families, sisterhood and Queer identities. Her poem "House/Home/Body" is in conversation with Britteney Black Rose Kapri's "We House," and discusses themes of death, renewal, body image and motherhood.”