i am sorry, baby

a love letter to my body

tw: contains themes of sexual and physical abuse

[edit] nudity after the paywall

dear body,

breathing the baby powder of stranger’s neck, i felt a jolt in you, a pulse of warmth that i used to only feel through other people’s bodies

before i fell in love with you, i was fixated with your head:

i mistook the attachment to the voices in your head as love because words were the only spells i knew at that time

i turned dead people’s ideas to body parts i’d reluctantly put in your mouths

i let a dark inky suit of shame sink into your skin. your blood almost turned to tar

i treated you like a voided check for years

your eyes are dripping saline

your wounds are now scars: stacked like a rolodex of fleshy emotions: organized, labeled, got a whole selection to pick from

the little hairs on your skin, hardened to stainless steel microneedles with each unannounced touch, only learned to be so sensitive because of moments, days, months, years of trespass

i didn’t know you until one night in silence you asked me to come into you

stillness was scary because that was when you hissed the loudest in spite

you shook, moaned, groaned, whimpered, wailed. then the water broke

no wonder you used to put me in the hospital for involuntary purging for days at a time

you kept throwing up until your bile was yellow and green like an infested swamp of other people’s opinions

after all the puking, i held your face up close to a mirror

“so this is what love looks like”

my love for you feels bigger and older than what i’ll ever know and that is ok

i let you flood from the base of your pelvic floor all the way to the top of your skull

spilling over like a fountainhead

i can almost hear little feet splashing the puddles

i love you

i am sorry

did you forgive me?

did i make you feel loved today?