An excerpt on wellness and womanhood from poetry collection ‘Dress Rehearsals’
WORDS BY MADISON GODFREY
“If I were a romantic lead, my pain would be a plot point: deserving of dialogue, yet damsel-defining.”
Been watching women in romantic comedies toss tiny handbags over their shoulders, laugh without smudging their gloss. They suck lollipops noiselessly, as if silence is true seduction.
Sometimes, disclosing my illness feels like coming out (again). I look too young to be this tenderised. My birthmark not yet faded. My freckles unironic. I believe that a body in pain is a body in the opposite of freefall.
In the film Second Act, the protagonist pretends herself someone else. Not to acquire attention, but to be successful in ways that can be recognised by strangers in train carriages.
Last week I answered a work call while wearing a surgical gown, my underwear bloodying a plastic bag. Mimicking filmic femininity, I recited a dialogue of betterment; poured wellness down the plastic pores of the phone, as if my womb could simply unscar itself.
On dance floors where nobody knows, it is easier to convince myself that my hip clicks like a metronome, not a clock. This chronic body is a betrayal I am trying to warm towards, an apartment with damp walls that I stay homesick for.
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When I fall in a ballgown does it soften the impact or just soften the sound? A student exclaims, you look like a main character today when I enter the room, red lipsticked. A louder mouth collaged over my own. Despite fake pockets, aesthetic signifiers of fertility still receive more speaking roles.
If I were a romantic lead, my pain would be a plot point: deserving of dialogue, yet damsel-defining. I don’t long for arched redemption. Let sick stay ordinary. An inconvenience carried in my cutest clutch. Something tactile that can be folded into squares, like my grandfather’s handkerchief.
If my body falls from a roof tomorrow it will still be a body in pain, only falling. When I confess the chronic of my illness, new lovers reply to a wounded animal. The signature scent that makes me feel sexiest contains musk, an ingredient derived from hunted deer.
Each time I prioritise desire, there are consequences. An evening spent swaying makes my joints protest the morning / I sip pale ale and each vertebra flinches / I make love and make pain, simultaneously. I perch on the priority seat of public transport, wearing stares. They say, a priority body couldn’t possibly paint itself pretty.
To be believed, we must be so sick that mirrors forget to include us. Otherwise, we are merely actors playing faulty protagonists, who forgot to get better before the film’s final kiss.
This is an extract from Dress Rehearsals by Madison Godfrey (Joan Press), available now. Submissions for Joan Press are open now, head here for more information.
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