Immense – by Jennifer Mariani

I am oozing,

spreading outwards.

I fill the crevices of places

that once made me uncomfortable.

I expand and echo; no longer silent.

I am unhushed – loud-

the voice my mother never had.

I am vivid, plum and persimmon,

seeping into the cracks of confinement;

staining the walls you built to contain me.

I am immense; antithesis of anorexia,

of the wasteland expected of us.

I spill out of clothes: flesh not fit to see.

I am uncovered at your inconvenience,

Unshrunk.

I am crystalline, blinding bright

in the dim ordinariness you bestowed.

My daughters will grow from me ebullient.

No danger for them of smallness or silence,

For I was too much.

Jennifer Mariani was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She currently resides in Calgary where she raises her two daughters, teaches ballet and writes poetry. Her work has appeared in Mosi oa Tunya literary review and Uproar. Her chapbook All Forgotten Now (2022) is available from Off Topic Publishing.