on learning how to love (myself)

dear body
it is so much harder to love you up close
my skin wants to feel the view of itself from treetops
even if my eyes are more than okay with just settling on passing faces
that you only settle on not always being close enough to touch
but my skin always wants more

my body has become a collection of memories
photographs developed onto my skin
on my way to work today i ran into your reflection
stumbled across your image in the window of that
bookstore i like to hide in sometimes
nobody saw but i am still embarrassed
there are days where there is no way i can stomach
a glance of a reflection of your body in the mirror
because i know
that is how others see it

what i mean is
my body holds scars i have refused to believe are there
my body is marked with violence
my body is marked with my own shame

do you remember
there are parts of you i only began to admire after seeing them
through the eyes of a lover
the way they would trace out slowly
the connecting parts and faint titillations
the windings of arteries and veins
the gliding limbs and ambitious momentum
so i could recall
their purpose

from womb to now
i have been taught of my own ugly
been taught that female beauty is hairless
and for a hairy brown girl like me
there is no such thing as
natural beauty

i have been taught that my body is not mine to touch
to wait for a man to come and claim me
for him to introduce me to my body
like i haven’t known it my entire life

i have been taught that my body was broken
but this is just a stupid metaphor
because if my body was born broken
i’ve been fixing it ever since

when i was younger
my whole world felt white
and i didn’t find a version of me anywhere
just wished i could see a portrayal of brownness
not built out of stereotype

i can’t imagine how it will feel to be myself when i am older
i have not learned what it means to age brown and grow beautiful
the women in my family do not think themselves beautiful
we have passed the weight of mental illness down generations
and it lingers like an ancient souvenir
we forgot to give away

but the women in my family
they bleach away the darkness
bleach their bodies into daylight
as if to make the memories on their skin
less noticeable from afar
this is the way i learned to love myself
from a distance

i grow my body hair as a way of reclaiming my beauty
as an act of unlearning my apologies of
sorry that being me in my own flesh is making you
uncomfortable

whenever i travel home these days
my parents plead me to rid the garden
that burgeons my skin
remind me that no one will ever want to be with me this way
no one wants a hairy brown girl
they say

but i want to show my family how we can be at peace with our bodies
by me being at peace with mine
we disagree on many things
but i could never blame them for not understanding this struggle
i am here because they did extraordinary things to survive
planted seeds for themselves in unfamiliar territory
treated like an invasive species
and still raised me brown like a tree
that grows to give shade to anyone that needs it
i don’t have words that can articulate
this kind of love

dear body
i have kept you at arm’s length
and i know that this was never fair
i never gave you a chance to be anything other than expectations

dear you
here’s the thing
you are beautiful and you are brown
you are beautiful, but that’s not the point
know that you do not owe anyone beauty
being beautiful does not make you a woman
being beautiful is not your obligation
there is so much more to you than that
believe me
start counting the reasons to love yourself

* * *

Abby Madan is a wandering storyteller who strives to use stories to build empathy and understanding in communities. Her poem is inspired by the Yoni Ki Baat movement. Find her at abbymadan.com.