Please don’t ask me to love myself
My friend wanted to cut her stomach off
“If I sliced this much, I’d be perfect.”
I don’t want to write about body positivity
This isn’t that.
One afternoon a few of us spoke about
the aggression with which we’re told:
“love yourself”
It seems like a different sort of assault.
If I don’t love myself enough,
am I not feminist enough?
Should I love my every flaw real quick
so I can affirm to being
a ‘strong, amazing’ collection of adjectives
from Women’s Day advertising?
If only it was easy to love myself
because you showed me photos of
one bigger than most girl and one browner than most girl,
squeezed between
a sea of conventionally perfect ones?
(Besides aren’t you selling me
foundation to make me look prettier
under the guise of telling me
I’m good the way I am?)
It’s not easy to love myself
so I think about breasts
which are muscle and sinew
and shaped like flowers under my skin.
It’s not easy to love myself
until I fall sick and realise
how I’m happiest
when everything
big, small, dimpled,
dark, rough,
disproportioned…
just works.
And this is what I’d tell my friend who wants to slice her middle out.
I’ll tell her,
Your breasts are flowers
your heart can stretch out for 60,000 miles
and your intestines?
They can be wrapped around the world twice.
You’re making 25 million new cells per second.
your yawns are contagious
your laughter is infectious
And you’re a miracle
As am I.
