Tonight's Poet Corner: My Armor

My Armor
by Belinda Roddie

This is the space where I hang my armor
when it's not in use, which isn't often.
I wear it frequently, whenever I go outside,
whenever the eyes of strangers spin like
disco balls in my direction. I'm shaky

when caught in scattered light; my expression
is refracted across glass, their reflection caught
in the breastplate. The metal's thin, but strong
enough to stop words in the shape of a fist. The
dents are from brass knuckles. I wear chain mail,

too, every ring of mesh a never ending circle
of a memory. I watch my fingers run in loop-
de-loops across a scene which dialogue I wish
I didn't still have memorized. I used to don
a helmet, but its visor cracked from the brunt

of a scream. Everything was shinier and sturdier
in my youth - the steel polished, the rust minimal.
I handled my armor with the best of care. I ran
iron wool across the hauberk, wiped my gauntlets
until they glinted more gold than silver. My boots

clanked loudly enough to muffle the taunts and
jeers of my jousting opponents. All I needed now
was a spear, or a dagger to deflect the sharper insults.
But I didn't have well-forged weapons back then, and
my neck was always exposed, and that was where

the blades and arrows struck most of all. No blood,
but I was left crumpled like paper in the middle
of the battlefield. Everything turned brown, until
I hammered out my first real sword - inky black.
Every element of my gear was worn out. I wasn't.

Now, on this bed, the scarred and puckered flesh
is bare. Hands without poisoned tips leave warm
marks across permanent stars. I let the broken
beams of the sun soak its tongue in my waters.
But then the howling starts again, and the buckles

of my breastplate creak when I put it on. My blade
is still sharp as I seize the tired scruff of its hilt,
ready to scratch, to draw blood and scrawl it on
the wall in epic calligraphy. I look like a poor man's
guard when I leave the house, a knight who's been

out of a job for a while. I may as well sit in the
local tavern and drown my sorrows in warm mead
poured into a shapeless, heartless tankard.
But I only serve to protect myself from beasts,
and today, I have built myself a new shield.