how to love your body

Caress your skin with gentleness and awe.

Feel your shape and take delight in it - where it is soft, round, sharp, angled.

Ask your body what it likes and consume only this.

Dress for joy in fabrics that move with the breeze and colors you can taste.

Dress to impress your twelve year old self.

Shroud yourself in layers of black lace.

Grieve.

Bathe in the forest.

Allow your skin to be kissed by the sunlight.

Unfurl beneath the moon.

Instead of walking, haunt. Float through rooms humming to yourself.

Instead of speaking, dance in a code that only you understand.

Laugh with your body about the times you have fallen down and remember how well you healed.

Honor this as magic.

Weave flowers and vines into your hair.

Scream.

Draw mandalas over your heart.

When strangers tell you to smile, don’t.

Never again beg for acceptance.

Stop asking politely for the right to exist.

Take up space.

Teach your body how to pull an arrow through a bow.

Tell your body there is hope, even if you fear there is none.

Your body knows it is neither safe nor free. Sit with your body and acknowedge this truth.

Then, quietly, when your body is ready, whisper to it that you will not stop fighting for justice.

Do not allow the oppressor to steal from you your small, simple joys and pleasures.

Love your body by allowing your body to love.