I know you hate this body
so much you’d rather crucify it with juice cleanses and midnight binges
than remove your brittle bones from the cross of self-doubt,
but sometimes it’s better to cut yourself down from the noose
than to make yourself smaller just to fit into the loop.
This is your body
hidden beneath layer after layer of skin like two thousand leagues of ocean
protecting an entire underwater city below.
Don’t let your city get rusted; keep it clean.
What I know about love is that sometimes it’s directed as far away from yourself
as the earth is from the sun, but all those millions of miles in between
are a journey worth taking, and the jet pack you’ll need for the trip
is a healthy weight to put on.
So stop carving yourself into smaller and smaller crawl spaces
and use that same knife to drive your flag of survival into the moon.
Make your recovery sign visible all the way from outer space.
I know you hate this body
but you’ll never find yourself in the toilet bowl-
the reflection in the swirling water is as distorted
as the idea that tiny equates to pretty.
What’s pretty is a belly full of moonsongs and sunrays,
a belly and soul so full of joy a whale could swim through them
and still not bump its head on their walls.
So keep the fire between your bones lit
instead of making them so delicate they could snap in half like matchsticks.
I know you hate this body
but shedding all this weight like a bird molting
won’t give you the power to fly. It’ll just turn you into a pair of busted wings
trying their hardest to lift up off the ground.
So stop holding your breath hoping the lack of air will make you deflate-
make you tinier, make you shrink-
and start letting it out instead.
Not just your breath.
All of it. Self-hate, self-doubt, the rage, the grief, the despair.
The defeat.
Keep going.
Until it’s gone.