I am growing
My skin is growing
Because my insides are growing
Because my soul is growing
And my body has to make room.
I woke with the weight of gloom
Self criticism of my booty hanging
Like two luscious peaches, swollen in summer
Of my thighs rounding into aspens, smooth
Of my hips flowering like open petals.
These last weeks have been weeks of softening.
I am not running away from myself
And toward a perfect me
So I can attract the perfect we
Into my life.
I am not popping every stress pimple
(though I still sometimes want to)
They are responses to my exhaustion
And they, too, are me.
I shoulder the backpack of problems
That are mine and the collective, not knowing
Which problems I can tend to, perhaps none
Except loving my peaches, my aspens, my petals.
When She knows herself, she knows the Creator.
When She loves herself, she loves the Creator.
Decades pass in diaries
I believed self to be shell
Media messages confirm, you
are always a work in progress.
Polishing, scrubbing, toning,
Tightening, strengthening, sucking in.
That which surrounds me is me,
That which surrounds me is not me.
I am tired.
I am process.
Inside, a request
To sit with wonder on my lips
To close my eyes to become witness.
Look, honey, look.
See, child, see.
You are everything, now.
I hold myself gently.
