My spine rattles and creeks
Aren’t you exhausted ? 

Holding everything together has left us
Battered
Misshapen 

Tell me- 
My limbs will say
How is that even when we tire
You are able to 
Still grip 
Still hold
Still move  
Forward, knowing our neck 
wants to look back and
Cave in 

My sternum whistles,
My heart booms and says
I’m still here,
Open and ready for you

This pit of my stomach squeaks
Meeps and says despite how I feel - I believe in you  

My soft folds in each part of my body say
We are loveable
You 
And 
I
As we are, as we exist, as we flatten and crinkle, 
hang onto these handles
 as you take up all of the space you are worthy of 

My knees 
laugh and toast their glasses
We have so much fun together, 
slow down sometimes from running and bending backwards, but don’t lock into us either. Fluidly move through 
for we carry so much more than this soul of celebration and woman

            So much woman
My body repeats 
Through scars 
And cuts
And scrapes 
So much woman
Aren’t we beautiful?

 Lysz Flo is a, trilingual spoken word artist, author of fiction and poetry, member of The Estuary Collective, and podcast host of Creatively Exposed who released her poetry novel Soliloquy of an Ice Queen.