Freshman Year

I was laying in my childhood bed when you sent me pictures of ass workouts. Those big plastic Walmart bins, extending across the floor prepared to move 250 miles away to college. My childhood stuffed animals peering at me over office supplies and throw pillows, probably wondering why I looked so dejected. I wanted to vomit, to forget what you had said, and spit out those photos my mind had digested.

I was beautiful to you the same way an unfinished painting was to an artist. I was your work in progress, a sculpture still being chiseled in your mind. Those photos carving into my confidence, wearing away my reflection and turning it into your expectation. I looked into the mirror I had bought, the corners still wrapped with cardboard, laying against those plastic bins, and started to see what you saw. I hated my body.

I had always struggled with the insecurity of not fitting the same way into dresses as my friends, having a larger lunch than my classmates, and being one of the slowest athletes in the running club. In fact, most everyone wrestles with their body image going through puberty. But this time it felt different because for the first time I was asked to change something about myself I wasn’t aware needed changing.

It's jarring when someone else points out unnoticed blemishes because it usually entails that there's more you just haven't picked up on yet. The idealist in you, who desires to be lovely, cringes at the thought of oblivion to personal imperfection.

As I sat there in the mirror, pulling the corners of my skin I watched myself shrink into my own stomach. I wanted to become the women you lusted after while watching porn, to become the Playboy models you pinned up in your dorm room, to become the standard you set moving forward from that night.

When I came to college and hugged you for that first time all I could think about was the way you wrapped your arms around my waist. I remember sucking my stomach in as if a moment's change would make me more desirable to you. But when I looked into your eyes I only saw the same face that sent me those pictures staring back at me.

I didn’t realize how much it hurt until I went to therapy. I sat across from the doctor who was performing my testing for generalized anxiety and depression when he asked me how you had violated me. I told him the story and mentioned that night so candidly I don’t think I would have remembered bringing it up if he hadn’t paused to apologize on your behalf. He told me how awful it was, on top of everything else, and for the first time, I realized how much your implications had tarnished my self-image. I realized that my insecurities weren’t my fault, but a product of the profile you and society cultivated in my mind.

I am not the antagonizer seeking selfish desire for perfection, I am the sum of the world’s burdens pleading for unrealistic standards, and you: a catalyst. I am beautiful the way I am and have learned to live with the pain you caused me throughout our time together because it made me stronger in the end.

A Homebody

Oh precious one, I wonder what you think of as you watch the nestlings learn to fly for the first time, peering out into the world. A perch, trodden and worn after many long nights waiting for my return, empty as you follow me into my room. You have always loved the windows of this familiar place, viewing each passerby and delivery man as if they were actors in the endless performance of your world, dancing across the screened-in sills, never thinking about their reappearance but thankful for their presence all the same. How lovely it is to be reminded to watch this sleepy town through your eyes, and remember the wonderment as if it were my first time looking out those same windows again. For even though your world is small, it is enchanting to you time and time again.

I've loved you now for a year and am still struck by your existence as a branch of mine, connected by chance and fortified through afternoons of pleasant company. You remind me to take care of myself, after tiresome days when my mind lies elsewhere. You have been with me through tears and joy, loving me nevertheless, and sticking by my side through loss and growth. How funny it is to have never held a conversation with you when it seems you know me deeper than most, my secrets and failures, on display for you with never response of judgment. I wonder what you would say from time to time, but then I remember what a simple creature you are, a companion and friend.

Through those same windows you have watched me grow and have remained a constant in my life through many seasons. You were sitting on my bedside waiting for my return when I found out my grandfather passed, when my first love dumped me over phone call, when I quit my first job, and when I first started antidepressants, leaning into me and harboring that same quiet sadness I had felt. But you were also there waiting when I started my new job, when I changed my major, when I finally turned 21, and when I felt brave enough to love again. Oh precious one, you have celebrated my life with me and loved me through every high and low. Despite the circumstances I have always come home to your silent, but compassionate existence.

To see you watching the nestlings, I wonder if you see me the same, departing and coming back to this apartment, learning to fly on my own. Your little bird, an example of life beyond that nestled, trodden window perch.

A Promise

You've yet to become what you are to be,

And yet to bloom where grown.

But that does not make you weak,

Nor that you've yet to be sown.

For you have taken root,

And broken soil still.

And come your own promised spring,

You'll crown this barren hill.