When I was young

 

I ran as fast I could to the edge of the playground and back

 

So I could brag to every child there 

 

That I was the fastest one out of all of them

 

And sometimes

I imagined the world blurring around me

 

And that I was a race car

 

Traveling at the speed of sound

 

With stripes running down my sides

 

And body paint covering me in a brilliant sheen

 

Then, I could brag that I was not only the fastest child

 

But the prettiest one there too

 

When I was fourteen

 

I took a swimming class

 

And I noticed that my friend 

 

Had marks covering the insides of her thighs

 

And I wondered where they came from

 

Because no one had ever told me

 

That the same spiderwebs that crisscrossed my mother’s stomach

 

Could appear on the skin

 

Of a teenage girl

 

When I was sixteen

 

I noticed marks on my hips

 

Lines tracing the curves of my skin

 

Like the caresses of lovers that I had never known

 

And as I tightly gripped the handles of my body

 

I knew that they were not scratches from the outside world

 

But my body filling into its own maturity

 

Or perhaps

 

They were the scratches 

 

From the claws within my body

 

Tally marks

 

For each thought that sprinted through my mind

 

When I looked at my frizzy hair

 

Or the sweaters that crossed my chest

 

Or the cracked skin on my knuckles as winter dried them to the bone

 

And when I stretched myself out

 

I’d watch the marks stretch with me

 

Bending and shaping to fit the contours of my image

 

Spreading out like starbursts as I depressed the edges of my being

 

Into a form that I thought was acceptable enough for me

 

Sometimes I imagined that they were battle scars

 

From each time that I looked in the mirror

 

And won the staring contest with my reflection

 

When I only scrutinized my own eyes

 

And when I thought

 

“Damn.”

 

“You look good.”

 

When I was seventeen

 

I learned that my marks

 

My battle scars

 

My stripes

 

Were not a reflection of what I had endured

 

But rather a manifestation of who I had become

 

Because when you grow into the person that you are supposed to be

 

Each mark appears

 

Stretching and conforming to you -

 

Not the other way around - 

 

One mark

 

For each thing that I learned to appreciate about myself

 

The way that my hair frizzes gleefully in the front

 

Is something that is unique to my own personality

 

Because I am at times a little frizzy around the edges

 

The way that my sweaters cling to my body

 

Is fortunate

 

Because what is the point of clothes with empty space?

 

The way that I twist the strands of my hair

 

When I am nervous

 

Is convenient

 

Because it makes my hair smoother than even the voice I have taught myself to speak with

 

When I know that I am right

 

My skin

 

With all of its marks

 

With all of its imperfections

 

Is flawless

 

Simply because it is a manifestation of me

 

As I stretch into the human being that I was born to become

 

My marks

 

My racing stripes

 

Appear on my body

 

Just as they did on the playground

 

When I wanted to be the fastest

 

The best

 

Of them all

 

And I know that now

 

I am still

 

The prettiest.