Mine

By Meadow Rie

Before I had even known my name I knew this body was mine to fit into. I knew I wore this body like a child wears the necklace they received at their first birthday; a permanent fixture, the whale skeleton in the reception of the natural history museum, the instinctual reach for socks first thing in the morning. I knew this body was all that I could ever own, from the moment I was born, fingers clutching my mother’s like roots in a forest system of hundreds, to the pain in my lower back which clatters down my spine every time I turn. This body is assuredly, wonderfully, terribly mine: mine to call home, mine to cradle, mine to maim and forgive.

But there is a calculated error. A misstep in the making. If I were to die right now, decomposing in some meadowy floor as my namesake consumes every last inch of me, would they notice the flaw in my ribs? The sneaky imposter, hoping it’ll hide amongst the reeds of my bones, that silent predator in the fronds. I can imagine it right here: my sisters crying out as they break apart, startled by the forbidden companion as they flee with the rattle of a bird’s wing. They will cower in fear and disgust, but at least one of them, bloodied from the heart and just as curious, will step forth and meet such an enemy. I hope they take that offending bone out. I hope I can be granted that kind of mercy.

In another life, I need to be rearranged so I was never created from Adam’s ribs and instead become my own divine being. I need to be something other than this tainted form, in this body wrought by man, poisoning these arteries, draining the life from my sisters and daughters and every dear blood cell which flows in tandem with the turn of the moon. How can I call myself a home when that irregular rib tickles my insides? Would I still be let into the garden of Eden even after that? Or would that angel bar me with his flaming sword?

But if it ever left me, dislodged itself the way teeth wriggle free at the age of seven, the emptiness it leaves behind is something I can’t ignore. Does that mean I’m only made whole because of a man? Did God not see it fit to create a first woman? Did He shield His eyes from her breasts and whisk the Spirit away from her naked form? If Adam’s rib is the point of creation, where does the birth of femininity come from? Surely this is what the Spirit saw, hovering over the waters of the first creation. Is that what femininity is? Is that where I belong?

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Meadow Rie is a sixteen year old Korean teenager currently living in Sydney, Australia. While she mainly dabbles in the visual arts, she enjoys writing a mix of fanfiction and tidbits of poetry and prose.