It was 2010 and Shakira was singing “La Torutura” at the Grammys or the VMA’S. I was 12 years old. Sobbing because I knew I would never look like her. No one would ever want me the way they wanted Shakira. No one would ever be blown away by my still non-existent hips. I was doomed to a life of ugly mediocracy and I knew it.
2007 I was told I had gained too much weight that summer by the one boy I had been harboring a crush on for years. He was blonde and blue eyed in a sea of brown people. I thought he looked like an angel. He let me know he thought I looked like a whale.
2006 the boys would bully me and ask why would I even wear a training bra. It was all bra and no boobs.
2005 someone made fun of my hairy arms. Made some joke about using the hair on my arms to climb up a mountain. Maybe like Velcro? I don’t remember anymore.
2003 In the cafeteria sitting with all my classmates as they made jokes about some girl who happened to have my name who was so ugly and so annoying. I remember one girl looking at me and loudly whispering about this repugnant girl, smiling at me, laughing when she told me it was for sure not about me. Everyone else at the table laughed right after.
I remember walking home with my mom from school crying. I remember her asking me why I didn’t want to go back. Because I was ugly. And everyone knew it. How could I go back?
2023 and I am on the eve of my thirtieth birthday. I no longer weigh myself. I was shopping for a wedding dress and I realized taking pictures in the dresses I liked the most was a horrible idea. I began to pick at every little thing. Convinced myself I look like a linebacker. I tell myself I am beautiful on these days. I tell myself to be softer and kinder. But the voice in my head lingers. It sounds just like those kids in high school and middle school and elementary school. It has gotten significantly quieter as the years pass. And for that I am grateful. Maybe there is a silver lining. I marvel at my body. Taking so many years of abuse from the very person who carries it every day. Only God and every other woman understands how brutal we can be to ourselves. I have torn myself apart a million times. And maybe it will take the rest of my life to make up for the lies I let myself believe but I know with certainty that if it takes my whole life at least my whole life will become a journey of self-love and acceptance.
But oh dear body, I promise you that I love you. You are resilient. You are strong. Your skin is soft and caramel brown at the right time of the year. Your hair is so black it shines blue. Your eyes twinkle and not just when you’re about to cry. Your face is round like the moon. Your lips full, and with so many beautiful things to say. And when you’re old and gray and your skin is translucent with age I will love you even more. For you carried me through life. And for that I will always be grateful.

Used and abused, but I still love you.
Tattered and torn, but still going strong.
Beaten and whipped, but still a little human.
Im sorry didn’t pay attention to you and your will to keep on. sorry I didn’t take better care of you
Now age sets in , paper mache skin wrapped around brittle bones, like a flag to a pole with out the glory.
No more curves no more flow
Sinking into the earth where I belong
Where I was made, where I feel safe

to my body,
we’ve been together for my whole life
yet there is so much
i’m just starting to learn about you

remember that time our doctor
suggested that we get on birth control
because i couldn’t handle the pain
that you conjured
in that process where
you give me a monthly opportunity
to bring life into this world

i didn’t understand how hard you worked
and i numbed your remarkable pain
for the next half of my life

i didn’t want to feel you
…and i didn’t
but i also didn’t bleed every month
for fourteen years

i didn’t realize that i’d been
hurting you, to numb
the pain that you caused me
but what i did to you wasn’t healthy

it’s been almost two years
since that other gynecology appointment
we went to
when our new doctor told us
that we were making an uneducated decision
to get off birth control

i’m so glad we didn’t listen to her
i feel as though
i am just starting to understand you
and myself
in new ways since then

you took some time to bounce back
from what i did to you
but after seven months
you started up that process again

the pain and blood rushed back
and now you operate like clockwork
i’m learning how to ease the pain
with lifestyle changes
and tracking our cycle

turns out, i’m learning a lot about
my emotions
now that I’m communicating with you
on our endocrine system

thank you for coming back to me
after i had shut you out for so long
i feel as though
we are healing together

our dad sees it too
last time we saw him, he said
“you look like you put on some weight.”
he said, “you look healthy.”

our doctor doesn’t have us
do ‘weight check-ins’ anymore either
i’m finally willing to listen to you
to stop depriving you
of food, water, and love

those unpredictable and disorderly dots
you cover me in…do you remember
how badly i wanted to scratch them off
as a teenager because ‘everybody’ didn’t have them
and I was so insecure
about how we were different

now, when i look in the mirror
i appreciate the incalculable speckles
scattered across our skin
trickling down us from head to toe

sometimes, i can even hear
my late grandmother
telling us that we, “have the map of Ireland
on (our) face.”

if i had been more patient, i wonder if i
could have loved our natural nose
when i was sixteen, i thought that nose-job
would fix my issues i had with you
and while i love our new nose,
i can see how little
appreciation and adoration
i have given you in other ways

it’s almost like, once i accepted you
accepted the pain
accepted the differences we had from others
accepted the messages you tried to give me
i found your beauty
by discovering your beauty
i truly began to discover myself

gone are the days where I numbed
myself from you
when our ribs felt as though
they could poke through our skin,
when we did not bleed,
and matte make-up
turned our map of Ireland
into a treasure hunt

Dear beautiful woman,

You ever wake up most days, and you’re all smiles? Yeah, that’s a great feeling! The way I see it is, If you can get through 245 of the 365 days in a year being happy, then that’s a pretty good year to me. That possibly leaves you with 120 days of uncertainty.

How do you feel on a day-to-day basis? What are you thankful for when you wake up? Do you ever think for one second that you may not be here the next day? Scary thought, huh?

I woke up one morning in November of 2021, not feeling great. It was during the pandemic and I had a bad cough. I thought the Rona had taken hostage over me. It was just a miserable feeling. My body didn’t feel well. I knew something was wrong.

The doctor visit was a little bizarre to me. The doctor was prescribing medication to me without checking my lungs out with an x-ray. I asked the doctor “can I have an x-ray?” She replied” sure”. The X-ray results were in and it showed a shadow in my lungs. My body with a shadow didn’t make sense. What does that even mean? I tested negative for corona, strep, and flu. I could not figure out what was going on.

The insurance didn’t approve me yet for a CAT scan of my lungs. I felt a tug on my lungs, as if someone tapped me and said “we need a further examination”

Weeks later, I still didn’t feel well. I was at work feeling like I was having an anxiety attack. I never had one before so I couldn’t compare this feeling to anything else. My body was definitely speaking to me. I called an Uber and went straight to the hospital. My body was still tapping me and saying “get a CAT scan”. Sometimes your body can turn in t a Bully to make sure you understand it’s language.

“I can’t breathe, ma’am”, is what I stated to the doctor. To be honest, physically I could breathe fine but mentally, I could not. I decided to exaggerate just a little so I can get the answers that I was looking for. I was rushed into the machine and received a CAT scan of my lungs.

“FINALLY, let’s do this”, I said to my body. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. My body was still talking to me. After the scan, I was placed in the waiting room. Scans showed a mass that was near my heart since 2011, has become too big and I will need surgery to remove it.

I thought to myself “is this woman talking to me, because ain’t no way I had a mass since 2011 and I was never informed”. It’s 2020 now. I asked myself “could that be a mistake?”.

I continued to do further testing and was able to be seen by a surgeon. The surgeon stated that the cat scans show a mass near my heart and it needs to me removed.

I was alone in the doctors office trying not to cry. “I have two sons and I need to see them grow into the great young men that they are becoming”. I learned a true lesson of “when your body speaks, you need to listen”

My surgery was scheduled at another hospital. I couldn’t dare have surgery in a hospital that never informed me of my mass in the first place. My body rejected that surgeon and his theories.

With the help of my attorney that I worked for, I scheduled my surgery in the City for March 2022. I had an MRI on January 25th. That was my dads birthday. My body knew that I was going to be ok, just for the simple fact that I would get clear answers from a test that I am taking on my dads birthday. He passed in 2018 from colon cancer.

March 2021 came and I was cut open to hand my mass removed from around my heart. Once I was opened,unbox revealed that it was not near my heart, it was wrapped around my lung. It was huge. My body had a score of “3”and these hospitals scored “0”.
A thoracic surgeon was on board and he saved the day. I thought to myself “thank god I listened to my body. I would have never known”.

It was not a speedy recovery. I went from not knowing anything that was going on in my body to having a tumor that was non cancerous out of my body.

Healing was not easy. I had to go back to work while I was trying to heal. The people I worked for asked me “what’s taking you so long to heal?” A woman being cut down her breast, asking her what’s taking long to heal? Imagine that shit! I quit and didn’t look back.

I didn’t know that I had the strength to build myself back up. My body has been through plenty of other surgeries but not like this one. My lungs were collapsed during this surgery and that’s not easy. I didn’t know that it takes mental, emotional and physical strength to get yourself back together.

I have a scar down the middle of my breast and I felt that I would be embarrassed to show my body. It’s a scar of resilience, courage and fight. I fought for my body and I’m glad I did. I am not going to be embarrassed of what happened to my body ever. I’m here and I’m alive.

Listen to your body at all times. It speaks to you, because you simply wouldn’t know.

I didn’t really know how to go about this but: I have alopecia; this isn’t a haircut.
I know, I know it looks like I get this done-
but that’s not the case.
See its felt strange lately, with all of the “shorty I like your cut”
& “what’s your shave setting”; because when I first moved here it was a lot of “god bless you” & “are you okay” whispers of “ why would she do that”
..why would I be diagnosed with a disease at the age of five?
Um.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot; now that things are more ‘positive’-
I feel a pit in my stomach.
Because it negates the struggle to get here.
Assumptions that I’m riding a trend.
Which, I’m happy that those younger than me w/ the same disease, will receive less scrutiny..but what about me?
My story untold; still unable to book roles, from the lack of typecast provided for fully bald women:
living a normal life, not cancerous, not villainous, no powers..where?
I write my own.
Submit my screenplays, send publishing companies my pages.
And I know it takes time, but my voice is muted through the patience; my heart breaks while I wait-
but I grab the tape.
Allowing myself space from the rejection I face.
Because I know in its wake, awaits my fate.

– written on the L train from Jefferson to Union Sq @ 10:45pm- By Faith Williams

Instagram: few16
Email: faithel1994@gmail.com

You my temple, have been tampered with. However, you’re still standing. You’re still mine. You have been abused in all sorts of ways, yet you stand strong, and this is the reason I stand strong. Physically, emotionally, mentally, beside others, besides myself. Over and over, time and time again. You still heal and shelter me from this life I have been blessed with. You have gifted me with the strength I face this harsh world with. My armor, my shell.
You have gone from a structure I struggled to build with weight to a structure I try to remodel by losing weight all these years later.
I have carried children well past the mark of a delivery date, only to have them cut from me because they were too comfortable to leave naturally. You have given me the greatest gifts I have ever been bestowed with. My boys. Now you have blessed me with another child, a blessing only God can have granted us with when he implanted this child in you.
There are days I feel old and weak, too old to partake in this journey once more. You prove me wrong and get me though another day.
You heal quickly with no help from the medical professionals. That impresses me daily. The amount of pain you have encountered cannot be imagined or described. If I didn’t experience it, I wouldn’t believe it myself. I trust you now more than ever. Witnessing and mentally being apart of the recovery has led me to believe that the only person that has the power to destroy you is me. I will be better. Kinder. Gentle from now on.
I apologize for my mistakes. Please forgive me for my sins against you. I take full accountability for what you have endured and I now find myself having the need to not only forgive others, but most importantly, I must forgive myself first.
I want nothing more than to stop surviving and to start living the life you have carried me through. You have been my protector all these years and now it’s my turn to protect you.