Skin

There were years of my life where I only looked in the mirror from the neck up, a casualty of being told I had a beautiful face—emphasis on the face. The rest of me I sheathed beneath masses of shapeless shifts, determined to cloak my fatness. This was a Sisyphean task. Nothing about me is small. So, I became a disembodied head floating atop a black void, desperately hoping no one else would notice the unsightly ways I took up space.

Today I feel more at peace with my body that I’ve ever been. After years of therapy and transformative friendships, I’m grounded, present within myself, and taking up space without apology, fatphobia be damned. There are moments, though, when my body and I are divided on either side of a tense cease fire. One false move and everything could explode. On those days I feel my feelings and give myself grace. I think of Audre’s words, “If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.” And I move on. This skin is mine.

I’m still sensitive about my skin though—the discoloration, the scars, the stretch marks.  Every year I spend a small fortune on soaps and lotions and face scrubs and masks. I dry brush my skin. I anoint it with oil. I don’t do this for others. I do it for myself. Months, sometimes years, go by where there’s only my one hand holding my one hand. Caring for my skin is as necessary as breathing.

When I share myself with another, I try to let myself go. There has to be a literacy to the way they touch my body. In their hands, the swell of my breasts, the generous curve of my belly, every spot, stretch mark, scar and beauty mark must be hieroglyphics that only they can read in that moment. When they kiss the insides of my thighs, they must whisper a benediction, an offering to the gods for the bounty they are about to receive.

It doesn’t always pan out this way though. It can be hard not to believe in scarcity when intimacy is a memory just beyond your reach.  It can be hard to accept intimacy when you have worn loneliness like a second skin.

So, I try to love this skin that is the color of red Georgia clay with the intensity of the sun and the faithfulness of the moon. And when I inevitably fall short, I just try again.