A Love Letter to My Body

After reading a fellow blogger and former classmate's blog earlier today, and taking a note from her, I've decided to write a love letter to my body. Jade was a graduate student in my Creative Non-Fiction class and she did a presentation on writing your body and I really gained a lot of inspiration from her as a writer. It's something I've been working on - writing my body - and it is much harder than it first appeared; it is, however, a wonderful practice in finding beauty and peace where I didn't first expect to see it. Please feel free to check out Jade's blog here. I, like Jade, have decided to contribute my letter to the SheLoves synchroblog, A Love Letter to My Body. I also would encourage anyone interested to check out Lucy Grealy's book Autobiography of a Face for an exceptional example of writing the body; to read a preview of the book check this out.

So here is my love letter - I hope y'all send yourselves some love, too.


To my weathered canvas:
 I have hated you - I have hated the white lines squiggling in precarious places when the summer sun turns most of you golden.

I have painted you - I have painted you in morning regimes of lotion, in inks of various colors, in bite marks from forgotten faces.

I have mistreated the cover you provide me with. I have abhorred you, I have detested the ways in which you shake and curve in unsavory ways.
I have refused to see you in anyway.
I have refused.

To my curvaceous, unseemly flesh:
 I have tried to cover you, to contort you, to convert you.

I've picked you apart in the face of a mirror, I've wished for different skin, I've overlooked what you may bring to the world, what you may reveal to me.
I've overlooked.

To the parts that make the whole:
 The bad-mouthing began at a green age, the disdain not far behind.

But here we are -
After bumps in the road, after cracks in our surfaces, after tromping of certain organs:
Breathing, smiling, living.

I don't refuse so much,
I've overlooked less often.

I see acceptance in the horizon, instead of the rear view.
I whisper (okay) not (you can't)

Acceptance . . . okay, okay, okay.