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.

The women he paints
In pastels but mostly blue
Reveling in intimacy
Bathing just standing
Bending without a care
At first glance
not models
But women, they are.
Muffin tops
and never toned
Humans, Women, Tender creatures.

Curves and love handles like vines
No start or finish line
All intertwining,
A beautiful mystery, I see.

I look at these paintings, mesmerized
Go home and see,
Steam from the shower confessing
Beautiful body, that is she.
Needs not look a certain way
Neither his nor hers
Only mine, how divine.

Why do they care
What I should wear?
The clothes,
Kissing and hugging my body
Is nothing compared
to the blissful smile I wear.

Endangered smile
Once again.
After 50 years or so,
They’re taking the reigns.
You take my body,
You take my everything,
Especially that once luminous smile.

Dear Body,

I love you because I severely dislike you.

At one point, I did not know if I would need a helmet to protect me from physically breaking a bone of yours. That is not my only bone to pick with you; it’s hard to swallow that everyday activities are challenging because of you: shoes, buttoning shirts, opening cans, etc., are taxing, but the younger me did not care about any of that: what I missed the most was sports.

Kids are taught to move their bodies from a very young age. Thus sports are encouraged. Signup sheets with a multitude of options are (sometimes)literally thrown their way.

Some are tossed in the garbage; some are run over to a parent or guardian as fast as Usain Bolt. Either way, as one of the only physically disabled kids in the school (that I could see), most people had a choice as to what they wanted to do with that sheet. I didn’t.

Before I even got the paper, my hopes and dreams of being on a team were crushed, like most tennis serves at Wimbledon, fast.

My feet actually did touch the grass of a baseball field, but only with the help of a “ball person” — yes, that is a play-on-words for a person who retrieves the tennis ball after it is hit into the net during a tournament.

I can’t participate like everyone else because My reactions are such I might get hit with the ball if I did not catch it.

Remember The saying “a picture tells more than 1000 words” (made famous by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright)? When I was a kid, it told the whole darn story.

My reality was different than my classmates. My dreams, not. Like many people in my age group at the time, I wanted to be a professional athlete.

I still remember thinking a kid on my little league team would make the majors. Not only that, thinking he was Shohei Ohtani — arguably the greatest player in baseball ever.

This kid seemed to be as tall as the Empire State Building. The chances are not that high that he did make it (although my brain is pulling on every cell to convince me otherwise.)

The chances of me looking up if he did: pretty high! (insert laughing emoji)

Everyone and anyway who stepped foot on any field or court lived out a dream I could only imagine; however, one day, my physical therapist (PT) and I were practicing my walking and running speed.

I broke a personal record (I think it was 30 feet in 10 seconds) enough to convince my mom and PT that I should try my feet on the track team.

I practiced for about three days, running around the whole track once. My mom saw I was exhausted, and after the second day, she told my coach to take it easy on me. I probably did not run more than 30 feet in practice once after and quit.

So, I used the body of this article to moan and grown about my very own. How about I turn the eggs sunny side up — hopefully, that frown will turn upside down!

Now at days, I look at things from “the other shoe.”

Sports are about the team and the people who celebrate with you. No game-winning hit can compare to “lacing them up with my team, “trying to play the cards I was dealt and “tying the loose ends” that cerebral palsy hands me every day, and when I “lace them up,” one by one, we have won the Super Bowl.

Something straight from Song of Songs is what I feel for you.

For me.

Staring at my reflection, bare and soft and brown and fluid from each angle, I begin to understand where God was going when He created me.

Safe inside my mother’s womb – the closes place to divinity, everything about me formed: fearfully and wonderfully.

Hair that curls and grows from replenishment like the Earth’s rain.
Jet black iris’s that speak my soul, pause time and provoke truth.
Full lips and high cheek bones naturally inherited from an ebony king and mocha cream queen who had trouble realizing they were born royalty.
Breasts that fed bronze flesh magnificently manifested from me.
Limbs extended with grace and great strength at the same time.
Silk smooth skin which tints to caramel in the Sun and cools in the wind.

I am.

Every part of me threaded together, piece by piece and so intricately; no other collection of matter or energy can match me identically.

There is not a strand of hair on my head God hasn’t accounted for, perfecting the texture and pattern, marveling at the color and precisely measuring each length.

Carefully placed each freckle upon my face and every beauty mark on my shoulder, hand and hip as if to connect galaxies inside my dermis far greater than the Big Dip.

Filled with a specific flavor that quenches any thirst and erupts from combustion like chemistry.

You should never feel free enough to tell me I ‘do not’ have favor, emit magic nor glow effortlessly; that is borderline blasphemy.

The complexity of this puzzle screams ethereally and although I sin inside and outside of this body – daily and quite unethically, I still strive to be presented without fault, pristine and purely.

I have admonished all of my idols, rejected the worship of anyone or anything the Creator molded as a mortal being but unfortunately, I am hoping it is excusable for me to at least be THIS obsessed with ME.

Dear Body,

I never know how to start letters.
I’d ask how you’re doing, but I’m happy to say I think I’ve finally a pretty good grasp on finding the answer to that.
For years I ignored your requests and even demands.
Thought you were too much and needed to be less.
Thought not eating would impress.
Tried to squeeze you into boxes you weren’t meant to fit in.
Tried to make you appealing to everyone but the one who was in your skin.

I can’t say exactly when the shift happened, or what changed my mind.
I think it was gradual, more like dawn than a light switch.
A slow burn of self love growing brighter as I worried less about the size of the stitches that made up my clothes and more about the person who filled them.

Instead of running from the mirror, I paused to Really look into it.
To sit and stare at the human within, and not shy away from certain parts.
To relish in the rolls, feeling each one with gratitude for how my body reminds me that I deserve all the space I take up.
To lounge with the looser parts of my skin and not feel the need to suck it all in.
To soak in the stretch marks and the story they tell of how I will not be contained.
To find each freckle and blemish and scar, to let them remind me of how I’ve come so far.

I’m sorry for the ways I have misused and abused you.
I’m sorry for the times I put you in a position to let others do that, too.
I’m sorry for how I starved you, even when you growled with hunger.
I’m sorry for how I then turned around and smothered you with food, while you silently pleaded for me to find balance.
I’m sorry for how often I told you that you weren’t enough.
I’m sorry that I truly believed you would never be loved.

You have taught me to choose you.
You are the only body I have, and I am grateful that it’s you.
You have led me through challenges and adventures that I thought people like me couldn’t get through.
You have opened my eyes to the fact that I am more than what other people view.
You have endured hatred and vitriol and strife,
And still,
You have held me more than any other person in my life.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Me

Dear Body,

For years you protected me
Shielded me from the truth
that our twelve your old brain
couldn’t comprehend

For years you stored the memories
of callused hands clamped over our mouth
Hot breath in our ears
The grip of a grown man’s hands on our
Twelve-year-old wrists

He forced you to become
a House of Shame and Secrecy
No one will believe you
You deserved this
For years,
Even I didn’t believe you

And so we spiraled
So full of words
No space for food
We withered away
Made lines on our wrists
To bleed out the diseased
Not even realizing
The secrecy was the disease

So we stopped swallowing words
Learned to speak our truth
Whispered the words
To family
Teachers
Mentors
Surrendered them to the police
Gently placing the truth
In their open hands
Wondering – will they believe me?
And they did
And the district attorney did
And the grand jury did
And at the age of thirty-two
We commanded our truth
Owned it and accepted it
And the jury said

Guilty.

The jury said guilty
The jury said guilty

And the jury said
Guilty
Twelve times

Twelve times
For twelve years

Dear Body,

You are no longer a house of shame
You are no longer a sack of bones
You are not a vessel of abuse
A tool for trauma

You are alive
You are a survivor

We’ve been through hell
Separated by our truth
But now we heal as one

Love,
Your Brain