I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When My Power's Out

This is my body
 I have weather veins
 They're especially sensitive to dust storms and hurricanes
 When I'm nervous my teeth chatter like a wheelbarrow collecting rain
 I am rusty when I talk- it is the storm in me
 The doctor said some day I might not be able to walk
 It's in my blood like the iron
 My mother is as tough as nails, she held herself together
 The day she could no longer hold my niece she said
 "Our kneecaps are our prayer beds
 Everyone can walk farther on their kneecaps than they can on their feet"
 This is my heartbeat
 Like yours, it is a hatchet
 It can build a house, or tear one down
 My mouth is a fire escape
 The words coming out don't care that they are naked
 There is something burning in here
 When it burns, I hold my own shell to my ear
 Listen for the parade when I was seven
 The man who played the bagpipes wore a skirt
 He was from Scotland- I wanted to move there
 Wanted my spine to be the spine of an unpublished book
 My fate, the first and last page
 The day my ribcage became monkey bars
 For a girl hanging on my every word
 They said "you are not allowed to love her"
 Tried to take me by the throat
 And teach me I was not a boy
 I had to unlearn their prison speak
 Refuse to make wishes on the star on the sheriff's chest
 I started wishes on the stars in the sky instead
 I said to the the sun
 "Tell me about the big bang"
 The sun said
 "it hurts to become"
 I carry that hurt on the tip of my tongue
 And whisper bless your heart every chance I get
 So my family tree can be sure I have not left
 You do not have to leave to arrive
 I am learning this slowly
 So sometimes when I look in the mirror
 My eyes look like the holes in the shoe of the shoe shine man
 My hands are busy on the wrong things
 Some days, I call my arms wings
 While my head is in the clouds
 It will take me a few more years to learn
 Flying is not pushing away the ground
 Safety is not always safe
 You can find one on every gun
 I am aiming to do better
 This is my body
 My exhaustion pipe will never pass inspection
 And still my lungs know how to breathe
 Like a burning map
 Everytime I get lost behind the curtain of her hair
 You can find me by the window
 Following my past to a trail of blood
 In the snow
 The night I opened my veins
 The doctor who stitched me up asked me if I did it for attention
 For the record, if you have ever done anything for attention,
 This poem is attention
 Title it with your name
 It will scour the city bridge every night
 You stand kicking at your shadow
 Staring at the river
 It does not want to find your body
 Doing anything but loving what it loves
 So love what you love
 Say this is my body
 It is no ones but mine
 This is my nervous system
 My wanting blood
 My half tamed addictions
 My tongue, tied up like a ball of Christmas lights
 If you put a star on the top of my tree,
 Make sure it's a star that fell
 Make sure it hit bottom like a tambourine
 Cause all these words are stories
 For the staircase to the top of my lungs
 Where I sing what hurts
 And the echo comes back
 Bless your heart
 Bless your body
 Bless your holy kneecaps
 They are so smart
 You are so full of rain
 There is so much growing
 Hallelujah to your weather veins
 Hallelujah to the ache
 To the pull
 To the fall
 To the pain
 Hallelujah To the grace
 And the body
 and every cell of us all