Pain tells you what to wear;
I remember the time when my mother first told me my skirt should never be above my knee length evening dresses
knee
;
It hurt like slow burning coal;
I was sure i was always going to be doing the wrong things.
Pain defines what your colours will be;
I remember the first time i was told how orange looked bad on my color;
Being 8 i thought i was getting it wrong;
Took me 20 years to wear the color again.
Pain distinguishes the contours of your clothes;
My father was a hot headed man of course;
It often defined the
length
of my clothes;
Of course once i couldn't hide the blood clot i got in my eye coz of his slap;
That was the year i tried running away from their house.
Pain slithers up like a reptile;
Like the time when you sit in a workplace & feel sick;
Because you know they are all watching you differently;
Maybe its' the skirt or the blouse or, holy fuck, the bra gone all wrong!
Pain whispers closely in both the ears;
Like that time when my breasts were out rightly groped in a train;
I remember whimpering but in utter silence and shock;
It was like a small voice in my head.
Pain,
even
in its imagined velocity, dictates the choice of your clothes;
I pack my suitcase very carefully when i travel;
Why, fuck that, i hide my tattoos in a local city bus;
And the scarf is my best ally.
Pain creates your permanent sixth sense;
Since your body is a museum of memories;
And my body remembers every
dress
in which it was sabotaged;
Pain in its bloody, gothic, real sense dictates my wardrobe.