Our bodies are cathedrals

When did we forget that our bodies are cathedrals?
Palms open, holy kiss.
Tell me about the day you realized you were empty,
how a scream ripped through your throat
and echoed off the ceiling beams.

Tell me about their faces.
I want to know what haunts your dreams so I can
paint their features onto firewood,
make a pillar of smoke so high we all start speaking
different languages.
Pull this temple into ruins—thighs crumbling,
walls trembling.
Tell me about the loneliness,

the way they threw handfuls of dirt onto your body
until they were convinced that you’d take this to your grave.

Tell me about the wildflowers that grew
from your chest,
hands upturned,
ribs unlocking like a zipper to expose
your beating heart at the root of it all,
still alive.

By Juliana Covey

Biography:

Juliana is an avid mug collector, frequent thrift shopper (…the two may be related), reader of young adult fiction and lover of typewriters (working condition or not, she does not discriminate). She has a penchant for pear wine, Taylor Swift and sleeping naked. She often cries during movies, continuously quotes Gilmore Girls, and has wished on many birthday cake candles to become a mermaid. Juliana lives in Kingston, ON, with her husband, Matt, and their exotic pets: a socially anxious hedgehog (Stella) and an unimpressed chameleon (Pascal). In her poetry she writes honestly about her own life and her personal struggles, and because of that, this is the first time her poetry has been published.