My body is a canvas
My body is a carcass
An open invitation
An all you can eat buffet
Where guests walk past
And gorge themselves
Plate after plate
My body is control
Calories and waistlines
Numbers and futures statistics
On the PowerPoint
While they sit my board of directors
On how best I can be desired
My body is a sin
It’s the white lies
I feed them
So that they
Can feel full
I have a “boyfriend”
I was with my “brother”
I didn’t drink
Do you now believe
I didn’t deserve it?
My body is the problem
My body is politics
It is too small
Too big
Too large
But somehow-
Feeling like I’m never quite
“enough”
My body is trade
Neo liberal agendas
Without someone to moderate
Body is third party actors
Programming consciousness
Into your brain
It dictates everything
Mind the synapses
Firing into the constellations
The mouth which opens
To argue, to cum, to speak
To protest, to scream
Body is
Body is
Elbows and hands
And fingertips that gently graze
Above the knee
Where desire meets disgust
My body is the “problem”
My body is your canvas
It needs third party evidence
And CCTV
To tell you about the crimes done
Against me
My body is dead
It’s lost compassion
It has somehow slit the gullet
My throat
And I will no longer make myself
Palatable for men
Because my body is my canvas
so surely
I get to choose what colours I paint?
Saisha Hayes is a twenty-three-year-old poet and musician from Bihar and Britain. Hayes got into music through her love of writing poetry, she would start turning her poems into songs. At the age of eighteen she published a book of poems called “Muddy sneakers” which has been published by Palimpsest publishing house in Delhi. Her music has been featured on BBC Leeds, Rolling stones India and the Times of India. She has just finished her bachelor’s in liberal arts majoring in politics from Kings College London. Her background in politics is often evident in her poems as they tend to cover political- social issues. Since graduating she has been working with the NGO Shout at Cancer where she designs music workshops for laryngectomy patients. She is currently working on her first novel.