copyright: ©iStock, credit: Motortion, Credit: Motortion, Creator: Motortion
How do I become more than my body?
Where what other can see is the most important factor of my being.
How do I become more than my body?
Where the pigment of my skin decides my worth.
How do I become more than my body?
Where the fabric woven into clothes becomes the language my gender shouts.
How do I become more than my body?
Where my posture writes the boundaries of the space I am permitted to exist within.
How do I become more than my body?
Where what my body can do shapes what the world deems accessible to me.
How do I become more than my body?
Where “normal” becomes a standard my body is expected, but unable to meet.
How do I become more than my body?
…
How do I become more than my body when few linger long enough to meet the person within it?
The rest of me exists in places the eye cannot reach
But our souls can greet one another
If given the time.
…
I am more than my body.
This poem really spoke to me as someone who’s experienced body image issues throughout their life. People tell you from a young age “it’s the inside that counts” but the world tells another story. You see how people are treated when bigger, or darker, or different in anyway. You didn’t choose the body you’re in yet it shapes your entire life. It deems what opportunities you get, how kindly people treat you, who wants to be around you. How do you grow outside of what you’re confined to?
I really like how you used a poem to express how hard it is to just be able to live life when society makes it so that people will always have the wildest assumptions about you depeding on how you look. I love how you constantly repeated the phrase ‘how do I become more than my body’, it really shows how much of a cage your body can become when it comes to certain perceptions, and how frustrating it is knowing that it is almost impossible to escape judgments like that.