Dear Body,

 

Our relationship so complicated

Almost toxic

I profess my love for you in ways 

Unimagined

From the tender age of

Fourteen to now

Nineteen 

Body friendly, body positive

Twitter fingers posting

“Thiccc girls all day, love yourself, know your worth”

Yet at the end of the day

I call you names

“Fat bitch,

 ugly bitch, 

worthless, useless”

Look at you with such distaste

Such disdain such hate

I force society’s beauty standards upon you

Internalized ideals 

In a desperate appeal 

To my family 

My mother in particular

Attempting to mold you into that

Beautiful young girl

Skinny waist, no stretch marks

Pimple free face,

A light weight

To her comments at dinner

“You keep gaining weight”

“Must you always load your plate?”

Can’t accept that this body simply just growing, and changing

Learning..

Becoming 

A woman

 

Because of that

 I refuse to feed you

Neglect you when in need

Then blame it on diet plans

“We watching what we eat.”

 

I still sit around 

mope and complain about the 

fat around your thighs

And the bags beneath your eyes

Yet, I leave you malnourished 

Rotting...slowly deteriorating

Breaking every promise I made

On my part of unconditional love and care

Yet, amidst all of this

I love you…

I swear..

Man, the thickness of your hair

Those black kinks

Even when coarse and brittle 

Worn proudly upon your head like a crown 

It almost hurts when you conceal them

Protect them

Tucked away in thick black braids

Or beneath a loosely curled wig 

Varying in style each day

Wanting everyone to see your beauty

Boast about you 

But unfortunately

Plagued by the fear of ridicule at school

For untamed , raw authentic hair

Deemed “unruly”

And how I love your mind

Though plagued by thoughts unkind

So creative, so talented

Chock full of ideas

Some philosophical, some wise

Yet stillll a goofyass bitch at heart

Your brief moments of vulnerability

moments of intrigue, and built up walls of ambiguity

Your mind 

A beautiful complexity

Yet, I know no healthy expressions of 

What I feel for you

A toxic love affair we share

In which I fail to see your beauty

At the times you need me most

And for that I owe you an apology

So many apologies
For the verbal attacks

Disguised as “beauty hacks”

I truly apologize

Until next time,

 

 

UC Berkeley 

Room 614A

College 

Finally here

The day you’ve spent the past 

Twelve years of your life working towards...

You unzip your suitcase 

Finally settled in

excited...

Yet, you feel odd,

Complacent

An unsettling feeling

You move towards your desk

Opening your journal...

Three words

“Growing..Changing..Learning”   

And you remember...

 You hate change                                  

From the minute you moved out of your brother’s room                                                             

To the day you turned 18

And officially moved out                                                                                                 

An “adult”

By society’s standard anyway

But

Change?

Always inevitable

An omnipresent cloud of doubt and dread

That loomed just ahead…

Beginning

Elementary school

 

The moment you went out to recess 

Tether ball court

And the boys said you can’t play with us

“Cause you’re a girl,” they sneered

And it shows

Frankly 

More particular than most

And from then on, 

You blamed and shamed 

All signs of 

prospective new growth

5th grade 

Teacher called your mom

Because “she coming of age and she needs bigger bras”

Embarrassed to no end

Can’t help but feel mislead

Puberty ain’t no gift, but a curse

For that day  

A label tarnished your name

Grace became “BTG”

“Big tittied Grace” as the boys say

Considered a prize

If they fit just enough shit in your bra without you noticing

But you noticed

And noted that it wasn’t just the boys, but the girls too

The ones you thought you knew

Should know best

Yet, couldn’t understand and hurt you 

In the process

Screw recess

Just a kid that didn’t understand...

Never understood why it mattered so much

Why people glorified and sexualized

Two lumps of fat on your chest

That continued to grow and grow and grow

Despite every attempt to make them stop

Diet plans, corsets, girdles, work out plans

Nothing was enough 

And with them your thighs grew and expanded

Stretch marks 

After failed attempts to disband them

Branded onto you

And you hated them, you hated your body

A spectacle for your “goods”

Not your looks because to them

You became Sarah Baartman 

An outcast 

A sexualized being but never “sexy”

A coming attraction 

But never attractive

You couldn't realize 

and claim

your thighs as your thighs

and your breasts as your breasts

And your chest heaves

to think that you believed 

Yourself

an unattractive being

 

You didn't see yourself

Really see yourself...now

How your body curves

And accentuates your worth

Your free 

At least to some degree

And coming to terms with it

Still

Still cautious of what you eat

Keep your head down 

When passing men down the street

But what less discrete

That growth

Physical and mental

A catalyst for change

Whether bodily or environmental

You don’t hate change

You fear it

Feel it

In every sense of the word

As you reminisce about the past

Hopeful this feeling won’t last 

Grateful

Of the growth that lead to change

Because you still have yet to learn from it

• Grace Adeyemo