“I get a lot of questions from strangers who think that because my wheelchair puts me at a lower height, the walls surrounding my personal life must be lower too.”
So begins Kelsey Warren’s riveting spoken word poem called "My Body." As a disabled woman, Warren discusses the rude stares and even ruder questions she constantly receives. Although she says these run-of-the-mill intrusions don't bother her any longer, she points out one question she recently received that really got under her skin:
“So do you like let your partner have a side relationship so they can have normal sex every once in awhile?”
“Honey,” she replies to the question in her performance. “If they’re with me, they’re not looking for normal and I don’t mean because I’m crippled.”
Warren goes on to explain that her sex is exciting and comfortable and sensual -- really anything but "normal" and that's why it's so good. “Sex with me is never normal," she tells the crowd. "Cripple copulation may be slightly more complicated, but it is always climactic. Not once has someone that I had sex wit said my sex was less than.”
She proudly proclaims her body is beautiful. "This body wasn’t made to meet your definition of desirable," Warren says. "This body doesn’t exist to be taken or left. This body is broken but it is beautiful."
With her powerful delivery, Warren nears the end of the poem with a truth all women can heed: "My body will not be denied its worth. My body will keep the job of being my body, perfectly."
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