Mansions

Close your mouth and your body will mend. Lose the fat and find yourself. This body of yours is too big, your knees are too weak to hold this mess of a body above. You are doomed to sink into the asphalt, the earth quakes with your thunderous thighs.

Your body is something to be fixed Contained Controlled Keep it from spilling out into a world not meant to see rolls or stretchmarks. Color between the lines of acceptable society. Stray bulges must be purged.

I have spent so many years doubting this body.

Doubting myself. Scared that my faculties will fail me. Afraid that my body is a decrepit hoarder’s house filled with useless crap, crumbling at the seams, incapable of supporting itself. An eyesore you don’t want to show the neighbors. Be ashamed of the hoard inside you.

This body did not deserve the abuse I gave it. Every crevice of this body is good. The details make a house a home. The extra material supports a strong foundation.

I am done doubting this body. This body fought covid and triumphed. This body toiled for 8 hours Under grueling heat And pouring rain

And unceasing pressure to change And still had power to get up again And again And again And bear the burden of a society that refused to acknowledge that this body while big is immaculate.

I am a mansion. Big but exquisite. Every roll a decoration every stretchmark an embellishment revealing the history of the owner’s life.

I picked up this stretchmark at dinner one night. Decided to place it here on my thigh to remind me of the grand old time I had musing in the corner of the dining hall, laughing at the trials of freshman year.