it's sweet to feel this way about you again, brand new love, like I can't wait to get your skinny arms around me and your elbows in my ribs, hip bones giving me bruises in more secret places. I don't know what brought it on exactly but I like it. and we're not doing anything new, and you still say the same things and act the same way so maybe it was me. it could have started when we spent the day in your house watching a stupid fake kung-fu movie series and eating sandwiches. it could have started when I was mad at you the whole night because you hurt my feeligns, and then we hit a bunny on the road and you felt sad about hurting the bunny and me. it could have started when we spent the whole night after thanksgiving together and got kabobs. it doesn't matter and I don't know if it will last. but it's here now, even when you're not and that means something.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
this is my body: covered in skin and not all of it you can see
I probably shouldn't be sitting on my bed topless after sending my boyfriend a semi naked picture of myself—my parents have this weird thing about not knocking before they come in. I sent the picture because I miss him, but I'm still naked from the waist up because I like it this way. I've been trying out that new self love thing after playing a constant game of badgering Ryan with questions of "doIlookgoodamIfatdoyoulikeme" questions over the past couple of weeks—months, maybe?—followed by exasperated sighs and an hungry thing in my brain that never gets filled with the "yesyoulookfinestopworrying." I'm letting the hair grow on my body, especially the hair that I'm not supposed to like or want, trying to figure out what made me not want it in the first place. I'm not changing my clothes when I think a shirt or my pants emphasize a part of me that I don't like. I'm trying to eat well and eat what I want at the same time.
I wouldn't say that I'm suffering anything more than routine insecurity. But I'm over it. Ryan asked me if I felt oppressed in my daily life as a woman— I have to say that the hardest thing for me is the lack of control over the narrative about my body. I'm supposed to balance this pressure to be this specific something while knowing that it really doesn't matter how I look in the end. If I'm 130 pounds or 180 pounds I can still get violated, and I'd be given reasons related to my body as an explanation: "your body was too irresistible," or, "you're too fat for anyone else to fuck." And there'd be nothing I could do or say because in the end my body belongs to a patriarchal society that tells me how to look, what to lose, and what to keep—both on my body and inside it.
So, it's like, what the fuck am I doing all this work for anyway? Who or what am I supposed to love so much that I hate myself? What am I sacrificing my mental well-being for? Shit. It's not worth it.
It's not such an easy transition from an epiphany to an ultimate dismantling of the invisible structure that fuels my insecurities. But I can just start appreciating what my body is, and what is has, and what it is capable of. I'm tired of tweaking when I really don't want to, tired of the rashes and the tight pants with no pockets that leave denim marks on my skin, tired of feeling like no matter what I'm wearing I'm still not entitled to complete control over my body. There are things I will change, and things that will remain the same, but I'm finished asking for validation from a place where I will never find it and don't need it.
I wouldn't say that I'm suffering anything more than routine insecurity. But I'm over it. Ryan asked me if I felt oppressed in my daily life as a woman— I have to say that the hardest thing for me is the lack of control over the narrative about my body. I'm supposed to balance this pressure to be this specific something while knowing that it really doesn't matter how I look in the end. If I'm 130 pounds or 180 pounds I can still get violated, and I'd be given reasons related to my body as an explanation: "your body was too irresistible," or, "you're too fat for anyone else to fuck." And there'd be nothing I could do or say because in the end my body belongs to a patriarchal society that tells me how to look, what to lose, and what to keep—both on my body and inside it.
So, it's like, what the fuck am I doing all this work for anyway? Who or what am I supposed to love so much that I hate myself? What am I sacrificing my mental well-being for? Shit. It's not worth it.
It's not such an easy transition from an epiphany to an ultimate dismantling of the invisible structure that fuels my insecurities. But I can just start appreciating what my body is, and what is has, and what it is capable of. I'm tired of tweaking when I really don't want to, tired of the rashes and the tight pants with no pockets that leave denim marks on my skin, tired of feeling like no matter what I'm wearing I'm still not entitled to complete control over my body. There are things I will change, and things that will remain the same, but I'm finished asking for validation from a place where I will never find it and don't need it.
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