IF A BODY CATCH A BODY

every 21 days I say to a mirror, start over.
I grab a stomach that doesn’t sleep, try to love my hands
around it. dog ears on the heels of days- what happened
Monday? when there was wind and I smelled like sweat.
I wear news about relapses like long sleeves, fingers
pink and hot with scar tissue. I tell myself February
will not be wrapped in sheets and I tell myself that
neither will I but I know a lie when I taste one
and this one’s a doozy. the next-day phone calls
heave dead words, leave dead animals in my lap.
I breathe stale, cement breaths. I’m bored with stories
that stir up memories, sturdy like thrift-store frames

meanwhile
my magnet rivers pool iron, the rusted bloodlines
yell and sing against the current
foaming at the mouth in the face of the elements

somewhere after I hold your face in my hands
and know I will not go anywhere. I will start over-
I am trying to love myself. maybe it’s the
same way men in boats love the catch they release
this floating past coming, going, swelling, bloating
I tell myself: breathe.
I tell myself: let go.

tomorrow
I will look in the mirror and know
I am someone to return to, I am someone I want
to steer home. you are someone to find
home in me.

By Cate LeBrun

Biography:

Cate LeBrun is a writer and special education teacher from Pasco, Washington. She enjoys the hell out of dad jokes, kindness, and the view of Mt. Rainier on a sunny day. Her work has been published in Words Dance Magazine, Gonzaga University’s Reflection, and on her mom’s refrigerator. You can find her at caterosewrites.tumblr.com, along with poetry and prose surrounding the issues of addiction, recovery, and the beauty in this gorgeous, broken world.