Tiger. Stripes

In The Skin We're Living In

Until one day, you'll look in the mirror and see what I see.'

Those words played inside my head over and over again like a broken record. It turned and twisted my stomach with a foreign sensation, I had no idea how to address this. He had no right to linger on my mind like this, on my body like this... -- his words.

Should I take what he said with a grain of salt?

Did he mean it?

The memory of his eyes abruptly burned through my mind. The way he looked at me as if I was the only girl in the world, and it was just me and him. My heart continued to flutter and flutter till I couldn't take it anymore.

What was this?

This reaction that's happening all over my body?

Could a few words actually affect me this much, to the point I'm.. hot and fidgeting? This was embarrassing. How could he say those things? We've been in that class together for months, and he never once looked my way, never once spoke to me. So why now?

Leon...

What is it exactly that you see?

As I stood in front of the bathroom mirror... wearing nothing but the skin I've damn neared outgrown, I realize, this was not the same skin I wore so nicely when I was brought into this world.

I see everything that I am.

I've gone through changes, and I'm not what I once was.

The skin I am living in has shed multiple layers, it's been abused by time, wounded by falls, weighed down by gravity, stretched and scared, ruptured and thickened...

Was this the price of having a body? Of becoming a woman? It didn't seem fair...

I see growth, the thickness of my thighs, the shadow of dents in my legs. Those pockets filled with fat. The sagging of my breasts... Their heaviness weighs me down, and it wasn't because of the weight itself. The pain, the burden of having such a thing did. All the times I've cried, wishing they were anything but how they are... my biggest insecurity...

There are days where I look at myself and feel nothing. There are days where I look at myself and don't care what other people would think, smile as I walk by and I'd pose a little. Then there are days like this, where I cry, wishing I had a different body. When the clothes were on, it was somewhat easier to leave things to the imagination for everyone. But I knew, when the clothes came off, there was no room for imagination. Everything was on display.

I couldn't hide who I was.

My body's a canvas full of marks, scars of rapid growth crawling my hips. Scars on my lower back intertwining like a pair of locked fingers. How could I see beauty when my body's the opposite of what women want, what men want?

I was riddled with these scars... all over, splattered with micro-pigments, some raised some flat. Call it what you will, beauty marks, freckles, moles. I felt heavy... not just because of my weight being nearly two hundred pounds but because I was tired... of looking at myself and wishing I could change -- to look like someone else.

Hoping someone would love me.

That I would love myself.

Leon!

What is it that you see... because I can't find it...

"Solé! Hurry up in there! You're not the only one who has to get ready for the day!"

I hadn't realized there were tears streaming down my cheeks.

When will it be the day that I look at myself and truly love who I am?