“My body is a minefield, please tread carefully” is what I wish I could to say to all prospective lovers. I don’t wish to be ridden with abandon, or squeezed with alarming inaccuracy. Instead, I hold out for that sensitive type. The one with gentle hands, and slow tempo, the one who could make me rise from the dead. Right now they’re nowhere to be found. So instead I am left here to ponder my own body instead, I wonder at all the flesh and from whence it came.
Oh, I remember eating pints of ice cream as child, and eating non-stop one day in a fit of rage. We used to fight over food in my family, with food worth more than love. Still, I was an active kid, I swam, ran, jumped and kicked. My body took me in circles, and cartwheels that still make me dizzy to think of. Somehow though I can’t remember when I was put together to be who I am now though. I have scars that I’ve never seen before, I’m sure. Reminders of the time I got the chicken pox, along with the flu. I couldn’t resist picking the scabs, so now I have little bumps to remember them by. My body is just a million idiosyncrasies rolled into one. I was born with 11 fingers. My pinkie toe curves slightly behind my foot, which makes it a bitch to put polish on. My hair, oh my beloved hair, how I hate it. I cut it one year and try in vain to grow it out. It has remained the same length now for 2 years with nary a haircut, it doesn’t grow…or maybe it just falls out after it gets too long. Reaches its max and throws in the towel. I’ve always hated my hair, my mum said I was hardheaded, but it hurt like a bitch every time she pulled one of those rat combs through the back trying in vain to arrest the kink and curl. I often imagined my hair coming to life, California raisin claymation style. It would start to dance and twirl, and then so subtly it’s mood would change, and from there the monsters came. I have a frightful imagination, but it’s easy to understand why any African American woman in this society would have nightmares about a part most prized. It’s so stupid; I wish we could all be bald. I don’t wish I could be bald, because then I’d be the freak. Really, I wish you could be bald. Then I could laugh with you, well actually at you. It’d be a change though wouldn’t it? I always wished for a more complete body, of course I want to be that model type chick with the skinny legs, perfect butt and lovely waist. I’d give that up, for just a little grace, instead, I got my father’s face. I finally got a written addition in 2001 during a trip to New Orleans, something absolutely foreign and new to my body. A lovely tattoo, I haven’t told my family just yet though. I consider it quite tasteful, my name written on my back. Luckily, I have a name that means something to someone somewhere other than myself. Otherwise it might be a tad narcissistic to some. Getting a tattoo has had an added benefit, where as before I shied away from even the mirrors, I now revel at every chance I get to show off my tatt to someone else, or just myself. Wanting to expose parts that aren’t so sensitive to light has boosted my self-esteem, making me prouder to be me. I never really think of my body as important for the most part, in general my body is just a vessel. It carries me, my soul, my thought, my feeling, and my process.

When I was 9 I was pseudo raped
by my best friend's older brother. I say pseudo, due to the fact that I kinda liked him and wanted to have sex. Not knowing exactly what sex was a big downer. Finding out didn't complete me, and the pain it caused me that brief night was not soon forgotten. Angrily navigating my way through, I kept on living — keeping secret certain pains.