Consumption

I want it to rush with a flowingness

I don’t want to be scared

Of something I’m not even sure is real

But when I feel it it’s real

When I feel it it’s a cascade, it’s a tidal wave

I am taken,

I am drifted

I am drowned

I am drowning in the possibility of a future

Either way it hurts.

There’s danger in abundance

When you come from scarcity it feels threatening to know when your next loving will be.

I’m not sure I can love in a way that does not consume me.

Can anyone?

Would they want to?

(January 10, 2023)

Empty tombs

Bodies scattered around rooms

I thought I died when you left me.

I failed to take one breath,

Then another,

Then another

Isn’t it better to marry the earth?

Isn’t it better to surrender suffering?

I failed to take one step

Then another,

Then another

Isn’t it better to never know?

What would we have been

If your roots would’ve charged through me like veins, like a virus

Isn’t that what love is?

I turn to the toxic ones like a smoker with their fix

I cannot tell if my breath is becoming deeper or more shallow

Does it matter?

Does it matter, as long as the breath continues?

I’m not a champion

You were the athlete

I was the passerby,

Turned victim

You were the victim,

Turned perpetrator

The lines are so thin they bleed

The world is close to ending

Is as good a reason as any

To end mine

All paths lead to death

Is as good a point to make when you’re covered in shards of my heart

And I, still dancing with shadows

The visions blur and I wonder how many more breaths until the last breath

It doesn’t matter

I’m breathing,

In your mouth, my final organ beating

Do you hear the music?

Do you speak the language of living?

You must, with the delicate disaster you’ve made of me

The blood spatters like Rorschach plots

This one looks like murder,

And this one looks like love

Same eyes, disparate vision

Here lies my last decision.

(March 9, 2023)

Anyone

I’m smiling

I’m giddy

It could be anyone turning the corner

At this point it could be anyone

For a second, I forget

Who am I meeting?

The faces and names blur from the past and write a story of deflated nights

They started just like this

The smile, the glee, the little hop when you turn a corner fast so you can get to them sooner

Who are they?

What are you basing your excitement off of?

The story they told, not in words, but emojis

You’re adults, why are you communicating with little pictures?

Is that the best you can hope for?

You, a writer

You, a speaker

Them, someone who always seems to talk at the wrong times

You, shutting your mouth so you don’t seem too eager

You, playing the game

You hate games

Poker, chess, whatever game where the rules are simply meant to fuck with your head

Whatever game where genuineness is a loss

That’s what this is

You’re turning the corner

Who are you meeting?

Who are they meeting?

Certainly, not you

A lesser version

A bottled version

A coddled version

An “all I want is love please don’t leave me” version

They never love, and they always leave

You could’ve predicted it with your eyes closed

It doesn’t matter who it is

It’s the fact of anyone

At this point it could be anyone

At this point it could be anyone

Until one day,

The face changes and you remember

It’s this one

The others fall away

There’s no more dancing with the past

You’re solid in the present with their presence and you remain you

That’s what keeps them turning the corner

At this point it could be anyone

But one day it won’t be just anyone.

(August 22, 2023)

The pebble

Most of the days are the same

Every once in a while one feels different

The sunset colors are more vibrant

Every once in a while the day hits me in the chest like a bullet

What am I supposed to do when that happens?

Every once in a while

My life doesn’t feel like a painting

It’s like I’m breaking through

Some people live in places where an eruption can happen at any time

I feel no different, when

Nothing resembles each other but everything blends together like I am that painting

A rushed watercolor with colors scattered like pebbles in ponds

Every once in a while

I feel my heartbeat and it grounds me

After shocking me

After urging me to live like I’m alive rather than dying

I read the bell jar recently and Esther lost control skiing and flew like lightning through air

She broke her limbs just to feel something

I would rather break the silence with a dance, or a fateful song

I’ve lived long enough to know self harm keeps on hurting

Sometimes enduring the senseless monotony is better in the long term than violence

Because I don’t like to clean up my own messes

I don’t like to overdramatize the very real aspects of my existence that wait at every corner I turn

But they’re still there

I think every moment will turn into horror and I’ve lived on knife edges for years

But somehow I need to articulate the awareness in this body

Somehow I need to sense the life around me just so I can feel real

So I can feel a part of something

Moving is all I do but there’s no meaning

Because I’m not moving towards something I’m moving away from the vulnerability I need to have

When I’ve felt alone for 100 days I think turning inward will cause insanity

And there’s only one way to find out

I’m trying not to color the emptiness with despair because I know everything is born neutral

And I feel it’s my obligation to live in a way that doesn’t bring others to their knees

What happens when I’m gone?

What proof do I even have of being real?

In this place it’s all my work to do and I’m tired

I feel the colors becoming more saturated

But the light is fading

I need confirmation that what I’m seeing is real

I need the universe to reach out and grab my hand and tell me “you matter”

I need the wind to hit the side of my cheek at the right angle to inspire some sensation

I need my dormant spirit to turn and tingle

I need to waltz at sunset to the sound of nothing

And I need to be okay with there not being anything appealing before me

I need to accept, maybe even appreciate, the days that just hold my existence in their hands

Nothing more and nothing less

I need to learn that time is a construct and every second is both meager and meaningful

I need to find the cravings and the sensations within

So I can just enjoy what’s outside and not put pressure on it for my enlightenment

My goal is to hold my humanity high and maybe even something more, something magical, something undefined in this dim light in which my soul stirs

Maybe honoring how much of this poem is unspeakable

How much of my life has not been translated into poems

How much of my moments will never be shared or understood by others

How much my life resembles the pebble, trailing blue energy, flying not fighting, letting the guiding hand do the work.

(July 11, 2020)

Untethered

I’m starting to look more like my mother

And act less like her

I’m untethering the tether that ties us from birth

Birth means nothing

Death means everything

Untethered I become

My own entity I am not in her shadow

I am her shadow, her subconscious

The half of her spawn who refuses to endorse the sins written in blood

She lives in a deep dark abyss

I am the light she cannot face

Lies that tear a family apart:

Where have you been for ten years?

What drains your pockets?

Why do you always have another home to run to?

What are you running from?

She’s never at home

She builds tiny sand castles too close to the water purposefully

She self destructs,

And not only self

She destructs her tether

She reaches into the pit and pulls out my heart

I cannot imagine carrying a baby for nine months, then nine more, then slowly,

Day by day,

Year by year,

Dropping them.

Your lies sprouted from the ground like weeds

There were too many to conquer

I was wrong about the fatal one

It was the tether all along, itself an illusion

“Mother” is an empty promise

“Womb” is a hollow home

For all the time we spent shackled together in the beginning,

You could never tell that now

I’ve had strangers show me more warmth

I was trapped in your body and my escape was a revolution

You love control, I was uncontrollable

You love facades, I am the truth

You bury your secrets amongst the dead

I am your shadow self

You cannot face me because you cannot face what you’ve done

You’ve accepted another casualty for your ego’s war

There’s no war

You’re only fighting yourself

(June 2, 2023)

You were not deserving

You never ever deserved access to me

Giving you a glimpse of my innards was a mistake

I labored through the upstream to carry my dreams to you

You poured them back, and floated away

I will never lose my breath for someone as lost as you again

I mistook your delusion for direction

I mistook your desperation for decision

You can manipulate and twist and warp every small detail but you can never erase the truth

I would’ve never treated you as you treated me

I would’ve never been so irresponsible, so careless, so selfish, so greedy, so cruel

Intention doesn’t matter when the impact is splitting someone in half

You were never deserving of my energy

You deserved none of it, not an ounce

Not a shard of glass

Not a piece or pebble

You deserved absolutely nothing

You can’t even love yourself enough to treat others with respect

You’re lost and confused and dragged me into your chaos

I don’t know what story you will tell yourself

You’ll probably pity yourself and claim victimhood

You’ll probably act like this was out of your control

Some things just don’t work out

You’ll probably fail to acknowledge your role in your disaster of a life

The story you will tell will be lies held together by denial

The story I tell will be strands of understanding, and hope, and self reflection

The story I tell will not be of victimhood

Some people are lost and you can’t help it

Some people are lost and make their trauma your problem

A lot of people need healing and growth before involving anyone else in their process

A lot of people can’t even utter the words they need to release

I will never be one of those people

My words are my primary method of resolution

I will never keep my pain captive

I hope someone can learn from the stories I tell

I hope I can let go through this process of documenting and validating

The pain is real, the feelings are real

And so is the possibility of moving forward

Making you nothing but a memory.

Splitting

I am splitting in half every second for the things that have never happened

I am splitting in half

For every moment I anticipated

I held my breath

I choked myself

I robbed myself

Of a real moment

For an imaginary one

I am splitting in half

Is it time I’ve wasted

Is it my own fault

I was never really in it

I was visioning

I am splitting in half

I am everything I never thought I would be

And nothing I expected

I am splitting in half

There is nothing left of me

That there was when this began

I am a puddle of brokenness

My spirit seeps

I am splitting in half

They won’t remember me here after a little bit of time

my name is scrubbed already

It was not a lot of time and I was never here to some

Would it be easier if I was never here

Would it be easier to have never met you at all

To have never sampled what my life could be if I was given wings to fly

Instead of pushed out on a platform prepared to die

I’m not a martyr

I am splitting in half

There is nothing left I thought there was here

Yesterday is a bitter dream and tomorrow is an illusion

I honor the pain the numbness the pain the numbness the pain until there’s nothing left but numbness

Then pain again maybe years later

Maybe when I take the wrong way home that makes me pass by the building where I was split in half

Do you have that?

Do you have routes you avoid?

Do you avoid half your town?

Once I forced myself through the neighborhood I grew up in and I swore I thought I saw some pieces from when I was splitting in half

I’ve split in half too many times to count

What kind of portions of me are left

Who even knows unless we go back and track down all the pieces

I can tell you it’s not worth it

I’m here, and there’s enough of me left to offer something

I’m not sure what yet but there’s something and just the mere possibility of a tomorrow is enough

I have split so many times I wouldn’t think there would be any left but you’d be surprised how deep our rivers flow

Maybe it’s splitting

But it’s also merging

Maybe taking that route home and facing those old truths is putting some of the pieces back together

They’re not the same

They fit differently

Nothing will ever be the same but at least there’s a body here and a breath when there should be, and a heart where there should be

I am splitting but that does not mean I am splitting in the parts that will end me

I am splitting and there is a tomorrow and I’m not thinking about what it is exactly

I’m just breathing and hoping to survive another day where I’m at the mercy of the world’s gamble.

Flow

Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’m not doing enough

Sometimes I cry because I feel I’m doing too much

And I will never know what balance is

Which is ironic for a Libra

Nothing means anything unless you internalize it meaningfully

True learning is not just knowing better but doing better

And every day I strive to be the person people think I am

Maybe they don’t see all the broken shards of glass because I’m an expert at repairing fragile things

And maybe they don’t know the danger in getting close to sharpness because I’ve never been honest about the shattered edges

I hate the idea of being any one thing

It’s hard for me to put my finger on it or name it, or claim it, or choose something as my own

Maybe because deep down I’ll never be convinced anything is my own

I don’t want to be attached to attachment, or nonattachment

They say flow is the key to happiness

And that’s all I’m reaching for,

When I laugh,

When I dance,

When I break character, or who they think I am

All I want is authenticity without the guilt

I want listening ears without advice or judgment

I don’t want to save the best parts of me for poems.

But that’s what it’s starting to feel like

And maybe it’s my fault for not being truer sooner, or bluer

Maybe I should’ve let them know a long time ago my river runs deep

Maybe I feel like everything else is shallow

I just want something that feels as warm and comforting as my deepness

As my aloneness.

I struggle with continuity when every other body disrupts my motion

Swaying to one song, everything else sounds like hell

Maybe I need to learn to turn the sour into the sweet

Or accept it, not change it,

Like I want the world to do with me

I’m proud of my evolution, and I would never want someone to discount what I’ve been through and where I am by wanting something more

Maybe that’s what this has been about the whole time

Stopping the wanting

Stopping the craving

Living in my body, in my home, even in isolation, if isolation is what breeds joy

If it breeds focus and deep realization

No river can run through this concrete and these bricks and steel

I contemplate alone at home like I’ve always been

Do they need to know the somber beauty of this moment?

Sometimes things are better left undivided

If I even try to explain the essence to you it will be diluted

I just need to treasure what I have

In the sacred moments in between all the nothingness.

The air where nothing is missing.

This is where life blooms.

On misogyny, queer misogyny, and a new kind of fire

As a woman in this world I have grown accustomed to misogyny. The earliest memory I have of sexism is being told in elementary gym class I could do “girl push-ups.” I was just as restless then as I am today and always did the full version of every exercise. How was I going to get strong if I never challenged myself? Why were girls not encouraged to be strong? Throughout primary school boys would try to flirt with me by offering to hold my stuff or carry heavy things for me. Towards the end of primary school I learned what sexual harassment was, although I didn’t know it by name then. Boys tried to touch me, tickle me, and chase me at recess while I screamed at them to stop. They did not. By sixth grade every boy in my classroom would use sexual innuendos with me against my wishes. I wanted to avoid boys at all costs. I just wanted to be with my friends and escape the endless sexual attention from boys, but I quickly learned that was the only kind of attention I would get from the heterosexual boys. In middle school, it meant I adapted to this behavior and sought out male attention. It was validation. My body grew more curvy and I loved to wear tight-fitting clothing, but I was told many times by teachers and school administration that my outfits were inappropriate. I was told to wear my winter coat over a dress. I was told to find pants in the lost and found and change out of my shorts on the last day of ninth grade. I was made to believe my body was inherently sexual. I couldn’t show my shoulders or my legs because it was too sexual, and it would distract the heterosexual boys. I didn’t understand why my body was sexual and thus had to be hidden but boys in my school could wear tank tops and shorts without anyone making a big deal out of it. I learned about double standards, and I learned I had to accept them because it wasn’t going to change. I was socialized in the culture of this country that believes that women are to be silent, only speaking up when asked to, and sexual, only pleasing men when asked to. My body wasn’t for me, my voice wasn’t for me. I was to bow to others and serve. Of course, because I am a “natural born mother”, I must be a caretaker to everyone who needs care. I must be a people-pleaser to everyone who asks anything of me. This became me. I was the “yes” person all the way through college. The few times I did speak up and express my viewpoint I was called a bitch, a rude person, disrespectful. I was told to just be silent. Go with the flow. But I was a leader. I am a natural born leader and everyone knows leaders don’t lead by being silent and unmoved. Most leaders are men and men can get away with anything, so it was never a surprise that a woman doing so would be interpreted so negatively.

I constantly struggled with managing people’s expectations of me. How should a woman in charge act? I have always been very serious about my morals and ethics. I have integrity because I don’t make exceptions for my morals, and I freely share this information with others. I know very few people who are as committed as I am to doing what’s right. I do everything in my power to not negatively impact any living being or process in the universe. I stand for justice and I am fiercely political because I am fiercely invested in the well-being of everyone. We live in an extremely unequal society that is sickened by capitalism, and I want to do everything in my power to resist this. Most people are apathetic to what’s going on around them. I try to shake and wake those people up so they can take their part in the movement towards a better society. I realize as a woman I am perceived as extreme and radical for doing this. The first major life change I took was going vegan for the animals in 2015. A year later I watched The True Cost and swore off fast fashion. I have not bought anything but thrifted clothes or clothes from sweatshop free and eco-friendly companies since then. Then I delved into reducing my personal waste, recycling, reusing anything I could, swearing off certain wasteful products for good. I committed to many issues at once. I am always reading about how I can do better, be better, hence why I have a podcast called Do Better Podcast. I think the only thing that matters in life is our ethics- the impact we have on the world with our actions. I always want to stand on the right side of history. I am always willing to change a behavior of mine to be less harmful to the planet. I try to inspire others to be this engaged and connected to the universe. I was a very, very involved animal rights activist from the time I went vegan all throughout college, and I always combined my vegan activism with spreading awareness of other social justice issues, because I am well aware of the intersecting class, race, and ability issues with going vegan for some people. I try my hardest to not be a single issue activist, or to be colorblind (referring to racism that functions by denying the role of race in social injustices), or to ignore any issue at any time. We must simultaneously work on being our best selves and work on liberating our fellow humans so they too can be their best selves. Self-actualization is impossible if you don’t have your basic needs met.

So I think we can all always do better in some way, and I push and challenge those around me to do so. This has often not been well received by privileged folks who are in denial of how they contribute to social inequality. No one wants to admit they are part of the problem, and yet people continue to suffer gravely. Being a female leader has been challenging because I always feel my word is doubted, whether I am relaying factual information or using emotional appeals. I am also in the fitness industry and have been passionate about fitness for a long time, but I am constantly corrected by men on things I know are true. I try not to interact with many men because I have faced so much harassment, sexual and non-sexual, and I am terrified of being assaulted. The proportion of women who are assaulted by men is staggering (1 in 5 is a common statistic). I can’t take my chances and trust men. I have, and I have been physically stalked and verbally harassed because of it. I learn from experience. I learn what not to do, who not to trust, and that has become most cisgender men. I have become increasingly furious over gender inequality in recent years as I have watched man after man get away with serious crimes. The rapist Brock Turner is a prime example. I do believe him being white also plays a part in his mere six month jail sentence. But there are other famous cases of celebrities being absolutely evil and abusing and raping women and children and still being idolized. Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant come to mind. I will always maintain the stance that just because someone dies does not make them a good person. It is also horrifying that a man can literally admit to raping a woman and be publicly forgiven, yet a woman can’t even make a minor mistake without her career being ruined. I remember Kathy Griffin’s beheaded Trump photo and how it almost ruined her career for good. Her speaking out against the horrible hateful dictator we have as a president is worse than raping someone? I have seen women dragged in the media for any small thing, and often for changes in their bodies, since they are expected to follow society’s beauty standards, and yet male celebrities can literally assault people and still be considered national treasures. Sickening.

Everything I have learned and observed plus my cumulative life experiences have made me extremely bitter and angry. I recognize I am a white woman, so I don’t even have the worst of it, and that makes me even madder. The pain wrenches deep in my body and makes me hate and distrust almost everyone. As a queer woman I have tried to find refuge in the queer community, but I have not found out. It turns out queer people hate women too. I speak from many experiences, but my most recent experience still stings the most. I recently joined the board of an organization called Stonewall Sports that has queer sports leagues that play for fun and raise money for charity. This organization exists all over the country, but my experience is with the one in Detroit. The latter part of 2019 I started a queer yoga meetup group. I missed teaching yoga, and I wanted to meet some other queer people and make new friends. I only had two meetings, and ultimately had more support on Facebook than actual people who showed up, but my online presence led the leader of Stonewall Detroit to reach out and ask if I wanted to teach yoga for the organization. I was excited about the prospect of reaching more people and being more effective with the same goals I had for my own queer yoga group, so I agreed. Yoga was to be my baby, I was to lead the process. What unfolded over the several months we planned yoga was not pretty, and I did not lead the process. Every time I could give an opinion, I was ignored, talked over, or (literally) laughed at. I was scolded for missing events and meetings because I was working or traveling when I had already made the board leader aware of my schedule. I put in a lot of work planning yoga, but was told it was already planned at the last minute and I essentially just had to show up. The one social event I made it to I was struck by the lack of women in the organization. There were three as far as I know (I do not know how everyone identifies) and a lesbian couple I talked to told me they agreed that the club was not very diverse. It also lacked racial diversity. For a Detroit organization in a city that is 90% black, I saw maybe two people of color at the social gathering and as far as I know there was only one person of color on the board. When I joined I was told they had a “diversity and inclusion” person on the board but only heard that they dealt with fee waivers- letting people participate in the sports for free if they stated they could not afford to otherwise. After months of being treated like garbage by an all-male board, I finally stood up for myself and said it came off as very misogynistic that my views were never respected. The response I got was effectively gaslighting. The board leader said it was awful of me to call him misogynistic and took no accountability for his actions. He said, “it’s not your tone that is disrespectful, it’s the words you choose.” Now I was being told by a man which words I could and could not use, and that was enough. I quit the organization in person, and it felt so liberating. 2020 was my year to stop taking other people’s shit!

But what happened was disheartening, and it’s not an isolated case. The queer community has long been an exclusive space. The show POSE on FX highlights how hateful cisgender gay men have been of transgender people, cisgender women, and lesbians for decades. I have personally witnessed this hatred in the queer community. I was naive to think queer spaces would be any different than the rest of society. It’s a boys’ club. Women, non-binary folks, and transgender folks are not taken seriously, excluded, laughed at, and harassed. The face of Pride is a skinny cisgender white homosexual man. One of the last things I said to the board leader (who fits this description) before I quit and walked out was this: “Queerness is more than this. You need more women. You need more people of color. Queerness is so much more than this.” I have heard countless stories on the internet of gender-oppressed folks talking about how exclusive queer spaces can be. I still haven’t found any place that feels entirely welcoming, and I can only imagine how much worse it is for those who are not cisgender like I am, because I can fit into straight spaces and cisgender spaces, even though I don’t emotionally fit in or connect with those groups. I can pretend to feel at home, though I don’t. Many people who don’t present themselves in a socially conventional way can’t pretend to fit in anywhere, because they are not welcomed and they will be pushed out. I wish for a queer community that embraces everyone and highlights and amplifies the voices and self-expression of those who have been pushed out and shut down, which historically is not white men. Now that the world is becoming more open to queerness, white gay men need to realize they have had their time in the spotlight. Most mainstream media with queer characters have featured white gay men. Lesbians are often the punchline in shows like Friends and even the more recent show Modern Family. There is a very clear message sent to non-male queer people: you are not valid, you are not important, you are not seen. I don’t want to echo this in anything I am involved in which is why I could no longer be a part of an organization I knew was squandering my voice because I am a woman. The board leader before I quit bragged to me that so many people have come and gone from the organization because they “couldn’t handle it.” His complete lack of self-awareness floored me. I realized these board members were probably from other oppressed groups and probably quit for the same reason I did. My heart wrenches for those people, and I can only imagine how many organizations on a national level are reinforcing oppression while claiming to work against it.

I want to believe there are organizations and efforts out there that are working effectively by everyone, for everyone, and with everyone. I am still searching for one, but I am realizing I may need to start my own. I am still figuring out how to best use my limited time and resources to support the most people. I do not prioritize myself or my voice but I recognize my mind is valid. My thoughts are valid. I have been told my entire life that the only thing of value about me is my body because it can be used to please men, but I am untangling this ideology that has brainwashed me. Little by little, year by year, I am standing up for myself. I am cutting men off and letting them know I will not be their puppet and I will not continue to be silenced. I have a voice, and I use it not just for myself but for all the other oppressed groups who are ignored and excluded. I use my voice and exert my power to resist oppression wherever I find it, even if it’s in my own backyard. I denounce policing the way marginalized folks express themselves, and validate anger, sorrow, distrust, and bitterness towards one’s oppressors. I believe and listen to experiences of others going through similar and worse situations to what I went through with Stonewall. I reject being a people pleaser and a male-pleaser and I commit to pleasing myself and working for the greater good regardless of who I piss off. I criticize my leaders, I criticize myself as a leader and a follower, and hold everyone to the same moral standard. I cease to internalize my oppression so I can stop the cycle and force a man to question the way he uses his privilege to brutalize. I don’t just hope for better, I help make things better by practicing what I preach, by being fearless, charging forward, focusing on the effectiveness of my efforts, and caring for my soul at the same time by not allowing others to squander me any longer. I believe in callout culture/accountability culture fully, and although this is only one small instance, by sharing my story I am re-emphasizing the importance of standing up for oneself and doing what’s right. Whenever it arises, we must resist oppression. We must call out oppressors. We must risk our public reputation, our friendships, and our personal stake in things to stand for what’s right not just when it is convenient, but ALL THE TIME. I know as a woman I am expected to keep the peace, but I refuse to do so while so many people suffer in our broken system. I refuse to be complicit in situations of injustice. I vow to liberate myself whenever possible by not allowing men to treat me poorly or objectify me. I have a life of trauma under my belt as a queer woman, and I will always be working against messages society sends me about who I should be, but I know I am strong enough to keep pushing and creating a better world. I know how convenient it would be if I believed them every time they told me I should do a “girl push-up” or the metaphorical equivalent of that throughout my entire life, but I have always resisted. I have actively defied norms my entire life until I have gotten to my emotional breaking point where I will not tolerate any more misogyny. This resistance has become my means of living. Although I embody physical strength in every sense, this vigor is more than a physical emanation. I am more than my human body. My grit shines forth from the blood of this trauma and lights my path forward. I am no longer what anyone expects me to be. I am a new kind of fire.

reconciling my body with my mind

Exercise was never meant to be a punishment

You only made it that because you internalized society’s messages

Thought the way your body looked mattered

Rather than the way it functioned to help you achieve your goals

You convinced yourself it was good for you

It was good to run your body into the ground and do the most you could every day to never miss a chance to be fit

Because fit was the ultimate

You were offended when people didn’t know how fit you were because they didn’t see you with all your clothes off and your muscles didn’t protrude through your shirt

You were offended that all your hard work still never meant you’d be considered stronger than any single man

You were determined to live up to your body’s highest potential like an athlete

You developed a disorder common amongst athletes to prove you were one

Wanted everyone to know you didn’t have a normal human body

You were far worthier

Worked far harder

Ate far healthier

Than the majority of society

Who was fat, lazy, and unhealthy

Health was your shield to be fatphobic

Health was your excuse to love your body because of the way it looks

Health was in the back of your mind the whole time you pushed yourself beyond the limits of a teenage girl

Removing yourself from typical teenage girl experiences like eating ice cream and pizza

Convincing yourself sugar was the monster

When it was really yourself

And now-

Believing in so much more than athleticism,

So much more than body fat composition and muscle growth

So much more than tracking your sugar consumption

Centering yourself on enjoying life and all your body can do but not letting life revolve around it

Finding rest, contentedness, the occasional piece of chocolate

Savoring the taste, reminding yourself health is not the rent you pay to exist in this world

Fat bodies are just as divine as slim bodies

There is nothing healthy about being obsessed with health

And you’ll never allow yourself to dilute your purpose like that again

Moving from a place of gratitude, moving as an act of love, moving because you want to, not because you have to.