The Body: Poems and Stories

By Holly Anne Mitchell

How do you stitch yourself back together after trauma, loss, grief, heartbreak? By inviting what is broken to become what is breathtaking. THE BODY is a collection of poems and short stories written in lyrical prose during the hardest moments of the author's life. This collection explores themes of love, loss, grief, seduction, creativity, consciousness, female empowerment, post-traumatic expansion, and the collective human experience. Because when words are not enough, art is the container that holds what the body cannot. And as the heart breaks open, the soul can be set free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350922530

Book preview

Lungs

The Surfers

It was a hot day–the last of many, and the sun beat mercilessly upon the sea. For days, the sea grew smaller, and the meek little fish clung to each other in pregnant fear as the salt crystallized upon the shores. At last, the final drop of sanctuary vanished, and they gulped stringent air into their feeble lungs.

How refreshing! the ray cried, even as the tears evaporated on his cheeks.

Yes, quite lovely out here, echoed the sturgeon, as his body convulsed through the pain.

The minnows grew legs and walked upon the desert, as the virgin flesh on their feet burned away. But why? they chorused, and the older ones shushed them, already forgetting the coolness of the deep.

The light unveiled their scaliness; more pungent grew their smells, and they became ashamed.

The catfish, they whispered, is fishier than we. And so, with vacant faces, they killed him. At night, they used his body as a pyre and huddled around his warmth, the smell of blood titillating foul, dark places unknown. In the morning, they wept, missing the hearty sound of his laughter.

The carp drew away from the safety of the bed. Wandering into the forest, he found the carcass of a turtle. Discovering the armor fit just fine, he carried the shell on his back, admiring the newness of his fortitude. I’m a turtle! he cried, and a crowd of hungry crows swooped in, searching for a reptilian snack.

They tossed him in his newfound shell, jeering and shrieking wildly as he begged them to understand. They pulled his scales off one-by-one and, satisfied, abandoned their carefree game.

Blind and naked, he lay dying, whispering to indifferent trees, I was just pretending.

Two whales, longing for home, found solace in a puddle while commiserating grief began a tango of obsession.

Her love for him was a toxic obesity–seeking only to consume–and finally satiated, pulled away, repulsed at the smell of leftovers.

He slithered through the mud of validation and became, once more, a shadow of himself. His sweet words whispered, I hate you, but she was just a vessel, floundering to tame the wild boar of his self-derision.

The moment was brief. These two were destined to dance, as always. His hatred denied and delighted her; her contagion nearly nourished his void. And the bitter dancers fell into the fullness of plastic arms, wondering who’s to blame.

A darkness settled. Coldness brought conception–the first of many children born into a strange land, and they smothered the small ones with hopefulness and poisoned their brothers with desperate expectation.

Still, the starfish was silent. Years ago, he saw them there–hungry and hopeless–crying for affection and turning on each other with the slightest kiss. On the breeze, he murmured, Swim, in dyspeptic disillusionment, and the waves of remembrance crested in the wombs of their consciousness.

The swordfish joined the starfish, jealous to his cause. Swim, he echoed, nodding, and the sounds of distant surf grew louder as they tumbled, chanting down the dunes.

Swim how? the old ones cackled.

And, softer still, he insisted, sweetly, ...swim.

One-by-one, they joined them, practicing their strokes for promises to come, and the proud mocked their buoyancy. Blood was spilled upon the sand to affirm the worthiness of the few. Some surfed because of loneliness–others, to assuage a perpetration, but the motives lost their meaning.

What remained was hope among the wasteland. And one day, though none of them believed it, the rains did come–washing them in violent promises and destroying their emptiness with the beauty of change. The ones who survived would forget the names and the morals of their tales, but forever remember the