My Breast by Meg Dolan

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: My Breast. Smaller text reads: Discussing disability in fairy tales and folklore.

I speak to you now, soft twin of silence and song--
not in dread,
but in dialogue.
Let this be a reckoning, not a reckoning by force--
but one by tenderness.
 
You have been
the site of wonder,
the seat of shame.
 
When I was young, I covered you,
wishing invisibility.
I mistook self-consciousness for humility--
before I understood vulnerability
as the birthplace of worth.
 
You emerged slowly, like truth,
late-blooming.
And when you came into your own--
not grandly, but fully--
I stood taller beside you.
 
You were never loud,
but you were mine.
And later, loved.
Held in warm hands.
Praised in the hush of midnight.
My fleeting confidence rose with you,
and even in its impermanence,
there was joy.
 
You fed life once.
You poured out milk
like a quiet miracle.
You were more than symbol.
You were service,
love in biology.
 
Now, they scan you.
They mark you with numbers and doubt.
A possible betrayal--
but even in decay, you do not lose dignity.
 
If there is disease,
it is not who you are.
You are a vessel, not a verdict.
 
Society still names you
fetish, scandal, battlefront.
But I call you connection--
to my child, to my lovers, to myself.
To the years I wore you with hesitation,
and the ones I wore you with pride.
 
Sometimes I rest my broken glasses on you--
a moment of absurd tenderness--
and I wonder:
do you still want to speak?
 
If so, speak now:
Tell me how you feel
about being feared,
about being watched,
about carrying a lifetime of meaning
without ever being asked how you feel.
 
Tell me if grief lives there.
Tell me if courage does too.
 
Tell me if, like me,
you have been waiting
not just to be examined--
but understood.
 
My breast,
if you must be taken,
let it be with ceremony.
If you must be saved,
let it be with reverence.
 
And if you are fading,
let it be as moonlight fades--
with quiet beauty,
with memory intact.
 
Because you were never just flesh.
You were always a feeling.

---

About the author:
Meg is an Australian self-published new Author who has one book *Story: Reflective Poetry* (2017), and a number of poems published to journals, in which some include: *Tipton Poetry Journal* (IN); *The Sunflower Collective* (LA); *SKYLIGHT 47* (UK); *Lifelines at Dartmouth* (MA); *Nature Writing* (UK); *Eureka* (Australia); *ditch* (Canada), and others.

Meg was lucky to have positive press coverage in newspapers across the state of Queensland, and a positive written review by The Red Room Company (Australia) regarding this book which shows a reflective style of writing. Meg’s writing demonstrates elements of whimsy, transparency of feelings, abstractions, and may present as illustrative through her use of sensory and colourful words and imagery.

Meg is self-taught and formerly worked in mental health as a therapist and support person. Meg’s education and qualifications are in Counselling. Meg is now retired due to an illness and has taken to writing as an outlet.

Meg really admires and feels inspired by renowned poets local and international, such as Sam Wagan Watson, Dylan Thomas, Lord Byron, Les Murray, Clive James, Judith Wright, Dorothea Mackellar, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Yeats, Ocean Vuong, Kevin Young, Sharon Olds, Henri Cole, T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver, Wordsworth, Jacob Polley — and many of the Bloodaxe Book poets.