This body of mine / Maybe I should have

This body of mine (8 minutes)

I have yet to learn to love this body of mine, just as it is. The message from early was that it wasn't even mine. How early? It's tempting to say that the most outrageous intrusion was the first but after all, don't we all get picked up, done to, put here, held close, told "no" and "now" and "nap time," beyond our control, from day one? How else would we learn that our limbs, our very place, were always for others to arrange and decide? No, that mystery goes too far back to fathom.

Untold stories are graven in this flesh, this body of mine - and in the growth, I begin to write my own veins, the comings and goings of bits that are too much, or not enough. Or I feel the warmth of the sun in spite of all that.

In the end, it - I - this body is my one and only life-long partner and co-collaborator. As I live so I live in and with it, and whether I love it or not, it loves only me.

Maybe I should have (2 minutes)

Maybe I should have dropped my shyness and pretenses earlier, and fought a bit more for that small part of me I held in reserve. Instead I questioned whether I had really seen and known what I saw and knew. In the end, I was more right than I gave myself credit for. I regret going so far down the road of second-guessing my own truth. Now, things will be different, come what may.