IT IS ME

Words by Vané Velasco

It is me
It used to make me feel bad simply to look at it
It’s ugly and worn and used

It is a neglected piece of nothing

The stench of a lifetime surrounds anyone near it
The simple act of thinking about it made me cringe
It is ugly and gross and disgusting. It is fat and stupid and I want to punch it in the face
I want to fall off of a high story window because I
I am nothing.

I can’t even keep a baby because my body is so unwell that it won’t let me

I’m not well
I’m sick and everything is wrong with me.

And then
one month passed
And then two
And then three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine

And we met YOU

And you have all your toes
Your head is full of hair
And when you breathe
When you breathe deeply as you smile in my arms I dissolve
And then I wonder

How did this happen

How did I? This incapable human, this nothing, this barren barely human make Make you

It is probably
Probably
It is because
Because
It is me

Because I am it
I did it
I am the matriarch
I am the feathers serpent
I am your mother

“How did I?
This incapable human,
this nothing, this barren
barely human make
Make you”

My body quenches your thirst
And my nurture kept you well through an entire pandemic

IT IS ME, BABY

I am your sanctuary

I love you
I will keep you well
I will hold you in my arms
And I will nourish you
And I will comfort you and do everything to make you smile so so big

And you too
I will comfort you also
And I will teach you and I will hug you and I will always always be here for you

And I wish that I could just take all of the bad away. Diminish all the chaos, all of the ugly and foul...make it go away
Make IT go away
But it is me

I am the good and the bad
I am the well and the unwell
And I hope I always remember that
And I hope that YOU always remember that
And I hope that when you feel unwell, that when you feel wrong and when the world tells you that you are anything other than this earths most captivating beauty, I hope that in those moments you remember me and you remember this, that you remember it and that it is me,
it is you,
it is US
who makes the good out of the bad, the glorious out of the horrid

It is us that have made a sanctuary out of these times.