HOW DO YOU OWN YOUR BODY:
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
by GRACE COHEN
I used to dream of being a spy,
loved James Bond and to dress up
Imagined hiding in tight places,
Erasing the boundary between me and the rest,
Wanting what I didn’t yet realise
and a really
As I grew older
my dreams shifted,
from James Bond
to the bodies of his mistresses
and if the screen was a mirror
I couldn’t see myself in it.
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.