My Body Holds Itself — Poetry by Lewis Figun Westbrook: Crip Futures Collection
Disability Pride Month initially started as a single day of celebration in 1990, the year that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in the United States. The city of Boston held the first Disability Pride Day that year. Then, in July 2015, after years of advocacy, the first official celebration of Disability Pride Month was held, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the ADA. Today, we recognize Disability Pride Month as a cultural and political movement built on decades of international organizing, resistance, and care work.
The Catalyst is a blog and community hub for the work of healers, organizers, artists, and storytellers. Throughout Disability Pride Month, artists, writers, activists, and healers were invited to submit their work for our Crip Futures collection. The following poem is by Lewis Figun Westbrook.
My Body Holds Itself
Bending claws,
Flexing collagen
Connective tissue tightening,
I am a collective, bundle of nerves,
I am every sensation, every stimuli,
a blurring of lines,
I am
Holding myself
a child wrapped too tight in protection
an ache, that says, stay quiet
stay so very quiet
don’t say anything
don’t—
relax
what if this is a hug?
My body holds itself
and I fight restraints
My body holds itself
and I kick feet out in the middle of the night
My body holds itself
and it hurts
it hurts so much when I fight it
I have to remind myself not to
I unlock my rib cage,
swing metal open
loosen drawstrings
My body holds itself
and I hold my body
My body holds me
and I hold back
I whisper, under my breath
I am proud of you
I understand why you are in protection mode
I take a sip of water
and say thank you, say I love you, say you are welcome here, say
home
“My Body Holds Itself”, in its original formatting, can be viewed below.
Lewis Figun Westbrook (all pronouns/no genders) will always prefer their bio be a joke but apparently that isn’t professional. They are a queer writer of too many genres and artist of too many things. He is currently published in Love Gone Wrong and FatherFather. Find them on most social media @lewisrllw