22/03/2026
BODY COUNT OR COUNTING BODIES
They call it body count.
Like bodies are trophies.
Like touch is a scoreboard.
and intimacy didn’t used to mean
staying long enough to be known.
They count bodies,
as if bodies don’t remember being counted.
like skin doesn’t keep receipts and yet souls do tally losses quietly
when no one is clapping.
They shine.
Yes they do
They are flashy outside.
Clean and Marketable.
A walking billboard of confidence
stitched together by filters and affirmations
borrowed from people who never had to live with the consequences.
But inside they are rotting.
The slow kind of rot.
The kind that smells normal because you’ve lived with it too long.
They are like fruit stacked perfectly in the marketplace
round, heavy, promising sweetness but sometimes the prettiest melon
is already being eaten alive.
Worms don’t call a meeting to announce themselves.
They are quiet.
Patient.
They thrive in neglect.
And neglect dressed up as freedom
is still neglect.
You can be big.
Desirable.
So attractive your beauty will open many doors
and you forget that open doors are access not love.
You can have hips that rewrite attention spans,
lips that make promises they never intend to keep,
eyes trained to look inviting without ever letting anyone stay.
And still be empty.
Still be starving
while surrounded by hungry mouths.
Those that hunger for the body
And though many know this
They refuse to learn.
Not because life didn’t speak
but because listening would mean stopping.
Stopping the rotation, the applause.
Stopping the addiction to being wanted
by people who don’t want to know them.
So they keep going.
Bed to bed.
Name to name.
Night to night.
Sharing bodies
like nothing sacred ever lived within them.
Calling it liberation because
abandonment scares them more than ownership
But if you can’t see yourself clearly there are mirrors,
and mirrors are cruel only to those who lie to themselves.
Because when they look,
they don’t see power.
They see faces layered on top of faces.
Hands that never stayed long enough to warm.
Eyes that looked through them
and called it desire.
They see a body that has been everywhere
except home.
Its undignified.
Not because s*x is shameful, no,
don’t insult intelligence with purity politics.
Undignified because self was traded
for momentary validation.
Because boundaries were called boring.
and whatever discernment left was labeled insecurity.
Because loneliness was greater
than the voice that asked,
“Is this really what you want?"
“It’s my body,” she says.
And she’s right.
Completely.
No one owns her.
No one controls her.
No one has the right to judge her.
But let’s stop pretending
that choice is automatically wisdom.
Because if every choice leaves you emptier,
we are allowed, required
to ask why.
Nobody is judging you.
This is not court.
consider this an autopsy.
We are not asking who touched you.
We are asking what it cost.
What parts of you had to go quiet
to keep being desirable.
What standards you buried
to stay wanted.
What self-respect you learned to mock
because holding it meant standing alone.
What goes around unsaid
does the most damage.
That’s where rot thrives.
In silence.
In affirmation without honesty.
In “do you, girl”
spoken over wounds that are clearly infected.
So I am saying it.
Not to shame.
Not to save.
Not to control.
But to refuse the lie
that freedom means never asking hard questions.
If this offends you,
sit with that.
Don’t weaponize your discomfort, its not empowerment
If you feel exposed,
good.
Exposure is how infection meets air.
And if you feel nothing,
If you are numb and entertained by this
then what is the purpose
of listening to the truth
if you only accept what agrees with you.
I did not come for your body.
But I did come for the story you keep telling it
to survive what you refuse to grieve.
I did not come to take your freedom.
I just came to ask why it keeps costing you yourself.
And if you see yourself here
don’t defend and you don’t need to explain either
Don’t perform strength.
Just look,
Because though a bit scary, mirrors don’t attack.
They wait. They reveal. You.
End: The most free thing you can do is tap a follow button. See you on the next conversation.
-Black Zinnia
