Poem By Rosemarie Bodrucki

Did you forget that you’re an animal?

Made of dirt and minerals

Bones comprised of atoms grown

To hold your meat upright

Cellular scaffolding like xylem and phloem moving your goods where they aught to be

Did you forget that you’re an animal again

Growling, prowling, shaking, moaning

Get all the noises and movements out so you don’t trap them in your body

You once tightened around the noises in fear of making a sound

And you wonder now why your eyes are bloodshot and you still hold your breath

In a house where sighing wrong made you a target for ire that was unprocessed

Let me remind you that you are an animal

Run, shake, let it out

Clamping down on madness only hardens your heart

Preventing the flow of tears traps pain and dis-ease in your body

You’re only sick because you’re using energy to keep the fear inside of you

Instead of letting it flow

Did you forget that you are an animal?

Run with me in the fields

I’ll remind you what it’s like to be alive

Climb trees

Feel the dirt beneath your feet

Howl at the moon and sky

Connect with your brethren long forgotten

We were made to connect around fires and streams

Made to swim and relax in the sun

You put so much pressure on yourself

The stress fractures in your psyche are starting to come out in poetry

My love

You are an animal

So be one