I USED TO DREAM OF BEING A SPY
DIVERSE REPRESENTATION IS EVERYTHING IN A WORLD WHICH PRIORITIZES AESTHETICS, VISUALS AND BEAUTY. GRACE SHARES THE DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES OF NOT SEEING YOURSELF REFLECTED IN SOCIETY'S BEAUTY STANDARDS AND WHAT IT MEANS TO TRULY ACCEPT YOURSELF, WORTS AND ALL
by GRACE COHEN
I'm gonna be rounder than my mumma and that's okay.
She used to walk around naked. Pretty tall but her boobies were definitely low, beautiful bobbing things.
As I grew through the stress of my degree – and I found what I thought were "alien burrowing creatures" in my hips (they were stretch marks), I became angry. I felt bad. I felt like a failure – like age had finally kicked in. (At 23). Tonight (I'm 25) I prounce around in my nothingness – but I love my feel. I love my tummy curving WIDE over my hips. The way the fat rolls up and up and up stacking like soft bred rolls with sugar on top ready to nom up.
I love that my nipples pointed south. I was FULLUP! I had a mumma body – a Kali mother creator destroyer body that hit the earth solidly every time I took a step.
My mumma walked naked but my body isn't like hers. I had tried to make my breasts smaller, perter. My body wasn't like hers - it was bigger.
My hope stood higher, my breasts lolled wider, my hips stood BIGGER. My tummy distended with booze and smokes and ham.
A goddess body. A Mayan body. A healthy body. A loved body. A body whose breasts began to graze the table at dinner as much as her hands did. A body that can only now just fit in an aeroplane seat. And just make it up the stairs.
I'll love my body for every time that I've hated it - and more. BECAUSE it deserves it. Because your body carries you. Because your very cells wear the wisdom of the universe. And every woman who lived and breathed and died before you. So don't try to make it smaller - make it bigger! Full of stories and love and hopefulness. Full of the essence of existence - of the future before us. The very seed, the very earth of life is held in our tummies, our healing arms and our heaving hearts. Goddammit! Don't try to make them smaller. We need to be big so we can be strong.
I'm gonna be bigger than my mumma. And my daughter after me.
Dreams warped with waistlines,
stretchmark seams
made me monster,
sewn into this heavy, cumbersome
but when the boys shouted
at least this body belonged to someone.
So hermit-crabbing from one form
to the next,
we used to joke
I was a B cup for five minutes,
and while my body tested the limits
of daily change
I used to dream of being
of pulling up the weeds of woman
that had
sown seed until my ribs
and taken root.
Think that maybe, with a little help,
I could be beautiful too.
It is not enough to simply tell someone
they’re wrong
when they tell you
the space they take is a mistake
and they need a silhouette shrunken,
and to those
in the only place
they can be
listen.
My body, now not quite the same,
shifting tides of womanhood
settled on my frame
sits still,
now feels more me than my name,
it’s holographic in
the morning light of my eyes.
I remember what I would have given
for my fat to have torn.
For my flesh to have worn down
and I smile.
See my skin, flesh,
adorned in only itself
isn’t perfect,
but my skin, flesh
adorned in only itself
is
Your body is beautiful
and terrifying
so batten down the hatches,
tie your spine to the mast,
this feeling you’re feeling
it too shall pass.