The Body That Stayed
On survival without spectacle, voice as return, and choosing yourself in a world that asks you not to
The Body That Stayed
On survival without spectacle, voice as return, and choosing yourself in a world that asks you not to
There is a version of me
that did not think she would make it here.
Not in the dramatic way people tell survival stories,
clean and bright, tied with language that makes sense.
I mean the quieter knowing.
The one that lives in the body.
The way my shoulders still brace
like something is about to happen.
The way my hands remember
before my mind does.
And still—
I am here.
We don’t talk enough about this kind of survival.
Not the kind that gets applause.
The kind that looks like showing up to class or work
when your body feels like it’s full of static.
The kind that looks like learning something new
while carrying everything you’ve ever lived through.
The kind that looks like building a life
while still inside the after.
🌒 On Becoming in Real Time
Something is shifting.
I can feel it in the way I walk into rooms now.
Not fearless—
but less willing to disappear.
I got into college.
More than one.
Transferring from community college—
from a place where I rebuilt something I wasn’t sure I’d ever have again.
Even writing that feels strange, like I’m saying it
about someone else.
There was a time when survival was the only plan.
Now I am making choices.
Not all of them feel easy.
Not all of them feel clear.
But they are mine.
And that feels like a kind of miracle
I am still learning how to hold.
🌕 Where the Voice Is Landing
Something else has been unfolding alongside all of this—
my voice is finding new places to live.
My poem Of Saints and Brujas was published in the 20th anniversary edition of Meat for Tea.
A poem about queer sacredness, about the body as altar, about what survives and still dares to call itself holy.
If you want to hold it in your hands, you can find the issue here:
https://meatfortea.com/buy.htm
There is something surreal about this—
to write from a place that once felt unspeakable,
and then watch it move out into the world,
carried by other people.
And there’s more.
On April 16 at 6pm, I’ll be on the radio—
Poet Talk with Ellen Miller-Mack on WMUA 91.1 at UMass.
Another space where the voice leaves the body
and becomes sound.
And soon—
a series I’ve been working on quietly:
short story, lyrical memoir pieces
that will air on 103.5 WCCH,
the radio station at Holyoke Community College.
Stories rooted in the body.
In silence.
In what it took to stay.
If you’re local, you can also find me in person—
I’ll be reading new work at the Majestic Café open mic in Easthampton, Massachusetts,
a mix of poetry and music, 2nd and 4th Sundays from 11am–2pm.
I used to think finding my voice meant speaking louder.
Now I think it means this—
letting it travel.
letting it change form.
letting it be heard in places I never imagined
I would reach.
🌿 The Body Keeps Its Own Calendar
Spring is supposed to be about renewal.
But my body doesn’t always move that way.
Sometimes it lags behind the season.
Sometimes it resists.
Sometimes it blooms in places no one can see.
Healing, I’m learning,
is not a straight line toward “better.”
It’s a conversation.
Between who I was,
who I am,
who I am becoming.
Some days they speak softly to each other.
Some days they argue.
Some days they refuse to share the same room.
Still—
we are learning how to live together.
🔥 Small Refusals, Small Devotions
Lately, I’ve been practicing something different.
Not grand transformation.
Not reinvention.
Just small refusals.
Refusing to rush my own pace.
Refusing to call my body a problem.
Refusing to disappear to make other people comfortable.
And alongside that—
small devotions.
A meal made with care, even if it’s just for me.
A text sent to someone I love.
A moment of rest without apology.
Nothing flashy.
Nothing that would look impressive from the outside.
But inside—
it is changing everything.
💌 A Line I Keep Returning To
If I love you, it’s already revolution.
I wrote that once thinking about the world.
Now I understand it differently.
What if loving myself—
in all the ways I was taught not to—
is also a form of resistance?
What if choosing myself
is the revolution?
🌙 A Practice for This Moment
Tonight, or whenever you read this—
Place your hand somewhere on your body
that feels neutral.
Not your most wounded place.
Not your most defended place.
Just somewhere you can rest your hand
without flinching.
Stay there for a moment.
Not to fix.
Not to heal.
Just to notice.
You are here.
That is not a small thing.
🌾 Closing
I used to think survival meant getting somewhere else.
A future where everything made sense.
Where the past stopped echoing.
Now I think survival might be this:
Learning how to stay.
Learning how to listen.
Learning how to build something gentle
inside a life that wasn’t.
I am still becoming.
Not finished.
Not resolved.
But here.
And maybe that is enough for now.
With devotion,
Isa Gitana