You need to eat, you say with concern. We need to get more meat on you. You are smaller from the last time I saw you.
I hold in a great, deep sigh. I could express
my annoyance and shut this conversation down, but I can already feel my
venomous response polluting my blood stream before it reaches my mouth.
Calm down, I tell myself. It’s not that
serious.
Your words echo in my ear; they kick up a
dusty memory as they descend into my spirit. The last time I saw you, the same
words spilled out of you like vomit, and I was covered in your bile before I
even expressed my joy at meeting you. I have to remind myself that if a baby
throws up on me, I’m grossed out, but my instinct isn’t to drop the baby. I
ought not to drop you with my words, no matter how callous yours are.
If I looked the way you think I should, down
to the kilogram or pound, I wonder if that would still be enough. Probably not.
Even the folks I find esthetically pleasing, somehow I can still find flaws. But
I have enough sense to keep it to myself.
You speak as though I don’t own a mirror and I’m
wholly oblivious to the edges and peaks of my body; how some parts are sharp
and not as smooth as you’d like them to be, and other parts may seem too
narrow, too thin for your eyes to even navigate. I invite your eyes to turn
back swiftly should they become discomfited when they travel terrain that is
too thin that it becomes claustrophobic. If your eyes are uncomfortable at what
they see, then they ought not to be there.
Tell me, how can you be concerned about this
speck in my eye and blithely oblivious to the log in your own eye?
Yes, there are bodies that are broken,
bruised, swollen, in need of help, and you are compelled to help, to speak. Do
you sincerely believe I am one of those? That with your help I will become
whole and perfect? Show me where I am broken, bruised and in need of your help.
Many are quick to find offense lately. Even my
annoyance— why am I so affected? I can’t expect not to get pricked walking on a
bed of thorns & thistles and get angry that they aren’t as soft as I want
them to be.
No; I cannot control your word vomit.
Truthfully I sometimes can’t control my own. But I can control how I react to
it. So although I was annoyed with you, you and I aren’t too different. Often,
when my body is at equilibrium with my soul and spirit, I behold beauty in all
shapes and sizes. But then sometimes I am callous & thoughtless, and
accidentally-on-purpose I drop the baby. I am getting better at being
restrained. I won’t drop you. Not this time around, anyway.
