My Body is an Ill-fitting Costume
Copyright © 2023 by Abalone Mountain Press
All rights reserved. Cover. Riso printed at Pachanga Press (Akimel O’odham land)
First Edition. 300 print run.
Cover art by Amber McCrary
Cover photography by Rachael Johnson
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright holder except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
Set in Adobe Jensen 12 pt font
ISBN: 978-1-7377123-7-4
Published by Abalone Mountain Press www.abalonemountainpress.com
Cover. Riso printed by Pachanga Press
For the victims and survivors, For those who recognize themselves in these pages, the neurodivergent and disabled.
For my mother, my son, and Uncle Jr. For my beloveds, my people, the land And for Mess, love you, punk.
“Doppelganger”
My Body is an Ill-fitting Costume
My Body is an Ill-fitting Costume
I.
Three sizes too large— Sometimes, lulled
by Southern Comfort, liquid sunlight, I try to disassemble
myself—Later when smokemist clears, they thread the skin back together— I shrug into
my suit, a delicate, raindrenched hide, and escape through a sliver of moonlight—
I am an outsider inside my own body—
“Mask Slipping”
For Fibromyalgia
It’s ironic that I once believed I was defined by anguish and pain. Then, my body, rickety
carriage for my soul, broke and reframed itself to fit those beliefs—Now, fire
burns low, cooking marrow and searing joints, and ignites along silver charcoal-dust nerves
Past Overflows Violence
a raw gouge in our Earth Mother north of home. I walk the sandy wash, as broad as silence, running west to east where we Diné were forced to flee and leave our dead, unburied, as U.S. soldiers and other native scouts hunted us down. Pale clouds shroud Moon, a shuttered eye, as I accompany my ancestors and dream in midnight colors.
“Self-Portrait/The Land”
You Tear Out My Tongue
and hang it on the line / It shudders in the dull Albuquerque breeze and cracks like a whip with each dry gust / Fat bees jerk back and forth before they settle to scrape their limbs
against its wet husk / I watch pale day-moths flicker close to sip the draining nectar / Finally, it becomes a bloodless thing, curling like a scream in the heat—
Indian Doll for Sale at the Thrift Store
A middle-aged woman, orange hair tightly permed, bones jostling within a red-faded threadbare
corset, manhandles the wide-eyed Native doll—hands pet imitation-buckskin fringe dress, sewn with plastic beads. A smile parts lips like the sheer cut of a razor as she rubs her thumbs over the doll’s sprayed-on brown skin—as his fingers explored and claimed the landscape of my body—Your skin looks great against mine: brown on white. But the doll’s
skin is flawless, no evidence of cutting scars at wrists, thighs, shoulder, or hollow
between the breasts—he mapped the shimmery ridges of those scars, too. Doll’s hand-painted
eyes are brown with black flecks, glaze and shade like mine. Woman clutches
doll against slack chest, hand cupping the back of her head—synthetic
black hair parted down the middle, tied in pigtails, with a headband snug
over her brow, restraining memory. He wrapped my hair around his fist, pulled until my back
bowed, until he came hard—Can you grow it longer? I amputated my hair, dyed it punk-red, and the color
bled out slowly in the shower.
My Nine-year-old Son’s Pulse whispers beneath my ear
I press my spirit closer to the desert creek’s murmur—
“Mountain Summer”
Imitations of Burning
-After Anne Sexton’s “Imitations of Drowning”
You dreamt of drowning, a dying that went on and on, a gin-soaked dream that followed you into waking You found novelty in fear, which you wrapped around yourself like a fur coat, stroking its coarse grain.
I’ve no success with drowning, I’m only good at burning. I tried beating myself against a stone to strike a spark but his hands crumbled into fists, grappled, flung me to linoleum floor.
I was mute coal giving off residual heat. Even the grip of my son’s mouth at my nipple, tugging a strand called maternal love, couldn’t lead me to living. Dreams were bleak—underside of waking. I tried to smother frenetic thoughts underwater. No luck. Too shallow, too tame.
My catalyst came, his vulgar love inciting want. I don’t know how we did it—immersing ourselves into each other.
Closest I’ve come to drowning. We couldn’t sustain it—slipped through the eye of each other, through the boiling foam, to find waking You drowned on air, on being. My landscape is arid—parched weeds rasp with faint stirring of evening. This is where I thrive, in the vibrancy of selfconsumption, in the novelty of burning.
Dear Dr. C
You’re an interloper who revels in the dregs of my clouded spirit. You tell me Separate yourself from the ache, don’t overlap with it. Otherwise, it’ll become your norm. Still, I try to detach my spirit—drunken, clumsy attempts to spill out of myself.
You tell me be mindful, be fully present. It’s a set-up for failure. My psyche resists being bound— seeks to expand beyond me, to project onto the sky’s green, luminescent belly, which drags along the cottonwoods’ spires and snags on steel streetlights.
You urge me to Stay, to write on—I break my bones so they’ll be that much stronger. I bite my wrists, gnaw on palm and knuckle to instigate renewal. I peel back my skin and probe past tendon looking for new being.
You sip at the dregs of me, witnessing, as I pick out a fluted bone of from my wrist, dip it in ink, and scratch it against the paper.
My Son Asks What Happens When You Die?
Your spirit sheds your body and your soul expands to the size of an ocean. You become a part of everything, a part of the Creator. This is what I hope, at least.
He asks—Where is Heaven? I say—We’re here. And I don’t have to lie. He climbs into my lap and tries to sink back into my stomach, to lay under my heart whose cadence was once the pulse of God.
He says—When you die, I want you to stay with me, like a ghost, or can you stay in your body, like a zombie?
I smile into his fine hair—I will, I can never leave you. I don’t want to be a juicy zombie, but I won’t be a ghost, either—Is it love that haunts us?
He puts his ear under my breast as if he’s trying to memorize the beat
“Time Lapse”
Worn Penny Promises
I startled from a dream because of you / you smiled / tongue curled behind bold teeth / who knew that below the enamel your gums were barbed / that explains the metallic sting / cold-flavored promises swallowed like worn pennies / even that I savored—
I bit down / rolled the barb over my tongue / and pressed it to the whalebone scaffold of my mouth—
ringing false / barbs caught in throat / their mass crept into brittle cage of ribs and tried to stifle lungs / beneath my last defense / my sternum / gravity condenses / around the bulk of your leaving—
“Griefwork”
The “R” Word snags in my throat like a rusty lure. Shame whispers as I tell Dr. C that the guy was a stranger, Not the first lie I’ve had to tell, who tempted me with white, sour vodka promises that Nothing’s going to happen to you, if we drink. Nothing meant the “R” word—tongue probing, so that I lose my sacred voice. Even my prayers are stolen. Most recent, his body invaded mine just like they violated our stolen mothers, daughters, fathers, grandmothers, and children. I forget who my body belongs to—
Forget that I am sacred mass and spirit and molded from Asdzaa Nádleehé, Changing Woman’s lunar blood, skin, and tissue—They defined my body by their use of me, by leaving it to store the memories—most recent, sand and asphalt lacerating my knees and his reek in my mouth. The first time, my cousin-sister’s fingers and tongue invade me, strip my innocence and voice, leaving me with memories of cold abalone moonlight. Later, my dad’s friend, at a rez revival, yanks my hand to his dick, his hazy beer breath sickening me—the next guy gropes my flat chest and strokes my legs, as he convinces me that I can trust him because I’m his favorite student. Everyone, including the other teachers, pretend they don’t see—Next
time, I don’t allow myself to scream—What’s the point?—but I fight as he tries to drag me to his car. After that, I lose count, I lose my holy body and spirit, part by part, but I tell my best friend, laughing—It’s OK,
I’m used to it. I pretend I’m immune to memory, to history, although my body never forgets and our bodies never forget—
“Winged Witness”
Gáagii
Wings extended skims over wavering stalks of yellow grass Austere sunrays strike her crescent silhouette glistening like a scythe Black wings beat lifting her upward curved beak sheering winter air
Elegy for Shidá’í, My Uncle
1. Things He Taught Me
How to chop with an ax, feet planted apart, and bring it down with perfect force to snap pinon branches and crack pine logs without them ricocheting in my face
How to be reckless, with a Take no shit! swagger and hardcore-rez glare, behind sunglasses, like him
How to stand in stirrups as his sorrel quarter-horse, Abby, gallops with jolting strides, while my porous vertebra complains
How to Hey, man, suck it up and be invincible
How to savor and mourn loneliness, The Lone Wolf! arms wide, inviting hardship and the overwhelming sky
How to load and hold a British 303 rifle, steadying aim with the rifle’s leather strap around elbow, and squeeze the trigger; the gun doesn’t buck,
but cloudy purple bruises will later surface on my shoulder and kiss my collar bone
How to water cheii, grandfather horned-toad, who lives in scraggly brush beside my great-grandfather’s hogan, so he will bless us with male rain
How to forget those who passed and those still living, and to only take out those memories in secret
How to exchange breaths, four times, with my week-old bay colt, Baby to claim him and have him claim me
How to Be a man! and love in fragments
II. Things He Didn’t Teach Me
How to misplace sorrow
How to drive stick-shift on his gold GMC Sierra truck with classic rims like he promised
How to take to sobriety
How to clean and oil a gun
How to put aside anger, so I won’t hit him harder than I mean to, when he laughs and cracks
a joke about my slow, soft punches; my right fist fires from my hip, a tight hook exploding into his left side; Aim for the floating rib
like how I practiced in the dojo with my chief grandmaster
How to live between spaces between realities without self-destructing
How hard it is to forget, that forgetting requires endless effort, like Sisyphus’ losing battle
How not to shoot a British 303 rifle while drunk and suicidal
How to live beyond nights’ and days’ weary gestures and endure
How much a bullet weighs
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the literary magazines who graciously published my poetry: “Indian Doll for Sale at the Thrift Store,” Writers Resist; “Imitations of Burning” and “Dear Dr. C,” Anti-Heroin Chic, and “Elegy for Shida’i’, My Uncle” by Poetry Northwest. “My Body is an Ill-fitting Costume” was previously published by Abalone Mountain Press, in the zine The Future Lives in our Bodies: Indigeneity and Disability Justice.
Gratitude
Mom, Shima, I love and respect you. You are the flexible steel of Dinè women. Without your support and enduring love this book would not be possible. Thank you for all you do, and for teaching love of family, our peoples, the land.
For my son, a kind, tender heart, blessed with creativity, who continually enlightens me.
To my bestie, Mess, love you and your relentless punk spirit! Forever grateful that you bullied and encouraged me to go back to school to hone my writing and to finish these books. Your bad-ass example keeps me going. I am blessed with your friendship, to have you in my life.
You’re a supernova! So proud of you!
Thank you, God/Creator/Mother/Father/Jesus, for my life, the many second chances, my family, and blessings. Thank you for this double-edged sword/gift of writing. Thank you for my abilities, creativity, mind, voice, and for my son.
Beth, thank you for helping edit this book, and your kind feedback. Your mentoring and teachings were pivotal to committing myself to a path of writing and learning and endlessly seeking knowledge.
Thank you, Abalone Mountain Press and Amber McCrary for your faith and belief in my art and writing. Thank you for helping bring this book into the world.
To Larry Schulte and Alan Zimmerman, your gifts and faith gave me the space and time to finish this book. Larry, thank you for the art, their spirits center me when I write.
Joy, thank you for your encouragement and gentle reminders. Your memoirs and poetry continue to nurture me.
To Sharon, thank you for your faith in my talent, your years of mentoring and advice and extraordinary care.
G, thanks for always going above and beyond, and never failing to answer. For the lessons in mindfulness, spirituality, and martial arts. Thank you for teaching me a gentler, protective form of masculinity. And for urging me to Create art and honor the sacred, rather than force myself to write, to manufacture.
To my beloved, thank you for the ache and myth of you, the fiction and poetry of you.
Gratitude to the many who’ve helped workshop these pieces over the
years, who encouraged me to pursue photography and poetry. 30
Thanks to the Trigger Warning Writers Group, which provided a safe space and fellowship that launched my rawest poetry.
Thank you, to those who’ve passed into spirit, my uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers, brother. Your love and memories sustain us.
Thanks to my beautiful Dinè people, and all our indigenous relatives. We are luminous.
Thank you, to my ancestors. Your strength, prayers, love, and protection brought me to this time. You continue to teach me to endure, to cherish the simple things, family above all
To the land and animals, thank you, for all your gifts, in their many forms.
Gratitude to one of my great teachers and fellow poet, the late Philmer Bluehouse.
Thank you to the following foundations and scholarships the Rudolfo Anaya Foundation, the Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship Fund. Graduate Student Success Scholarship. Thank you, the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, Emerging Dinè Writers Institute for the education, opportunities, and ties.
Rachael Johnson is a neurodivergent, androgynous-gender-fluid, disabled Diné writer/poet from the Navajo Nation. She belongs to Táchii’nii, the Red Running into the Water people, and is born for Kinyaa’áanii, the Towering House clan. Her prose and poetry have been published in The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature, Anti-Heroin Chic, Wordgathering, Writers Resist, Poetry Northwest, and Prairie Schooner. Her essay, “Nowhere Place,” won Prairie Schooner’s 2017 Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest, a Glenna Luschei Award, and was recognized as a 2018 Notable Essay by Best American Essays. The Diné Reader: an Anthology of Navajo Literature, in which her poems were published, received a 2022 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. She is a kajukenbo mixed martial arts student. She is currently writing a memoir and a novel.
Photo by Rita Johnson
