This is my body.

Chipped nail polish on short nails

That aren’t even bitten off evenly

Fingers with sparse hairs on them,

 That sometimes there and sometimes aren’t

Calloused hands that connect to tiny wrists up skinny arms

 That become chunky by the time they hit my shoulder

Is this what my body has become?

Wide shoulders, with a layer of fat that sweeps around to huge breasts capped off with dark nipples

Sprinkled with freckles as a funny dash of irony and lined with stretch marks…

When did I grow these? Is this really my body?

A round waist-line, stretched and shrunken and stretched

 by

An eating disorder…

Rampaging hormones…

Two lost children…

Why does this body hate me? Is it mine or am I belonging to it?

It continues…

Hipbones too high for their own good

Stretch into a decent albeit petite butt

With legs long enough to make Barbie Jealous

Covered in more of those ironic freckles, bruises

Scars and self-harm marks only a few…

Birth marks and bite scars and of course hair

And a single tattoo

Attached to feet

Feet that have danced on stages

And while bare on streets

Stood on football fields for homecoming

Strode through the arches of many a prom

Worn heels and high leg boots

Feet that have nudged horses

Kicked faces and marched

Marched for the rights of the unborn

Marched for the rights of the woman who owns them

Marched for all women

Marched for Queer and Straight

Feet without nail polish on their toes

Bruised feet complete with

Callouses and sometimes even corns and bunions

But this body…

Possibly mine doesn’t end with feet

There is the mind inside the head….

And the vagina in-between my legs…

Behind a face with a wide nose

Horribly short brows and wide eyes

With naturally short lashes

There is the mind.

Filled with self-doubt and loathing

Filled with questions and concerns

Filled with dirty and honest thoughts

Replaying memories and forgotten talks

Dealing with looking in the mirror….

And then there is the vagina…

Pierced, shaved and in the past

Pounded by men who don’t give a fuck

Fingered by girls who’ve fucked me over

Kissed and called precious

By lovers who have no love in their hearts

Loved..yet sometimes hated for being what it is

Yes. A few times…Sometimes…

Fuck it…A lot of the time I wish I had a dick.

All of these things…They make me tick

This is it. And as I look and think…

I realize. This is my body.

THIS IS MY MOTHERFUCKING BODY.

It has been bruised

It has been abused

By myself and others

But it has been loved

It’s been held close

And it’s given up every secret it has

And the biggest secret is:

I AM MORE THAN MY MOTHERFUCKING BODY   

I AM MORE THAN

 SHORT HAIR

 THAN RUDE STARES

I am more than everything

That I have ever been through

It belongs to me

I am not my body or

 How I choose to destroy it

I have a body

But I am a soul

This body is a shell

A painting of my life

Of everything I’ve been through

Each scar a brush stroke

Each bruise a fine line

And I am not Bob Ross.

My mistakes will not become fucking birds

They will become badges

And I will fight

Until I love my body

Until I adore every inch of me

From cracked nails to sordid details

And I will not settle

I will push my body to be better

And I will push myself not to settle

To find someone(s) who accept me

Who can see my soul

And realize

I am not just my body