Jane E. Babin
Cell 2 Soul. 2006 Winter; 2(4):a10
A diseased body, imperfect,
at times hideous and disgusting, is not made for love;
not for wistful sighing summer days of love
or pulsing, restless, cloying kinds of love.
It is not meant to improve; this ravaging beast within me
extracts all femininity, leaving me sexless and benign.
How to wile you, a keyless door through which I dare not enter
lest my heart, rejected, burst into a hundred pieces`
like broken shells scattered on the shore
So, how you can love me I do not know.
Your smile, your soft voice an oasis in this decomposing desert.
I crave it, yet feel ashamed at wanting you to waste your love on me.
Would I accept it, I fear the earth might spin off balance
casting me deep into the universe, you now a mere hologram I am forever
meant to look upon but cannot touch.
Such punishment for desiring you I could not bear.
It has been only after months of grieving this dead shell
that I have been forced to love myself, lest God abandon me.