This is not my body. It never was.
I don't mean it belongs to someone else or that everyone else owns my body. I don't mean for this to go any deeper than it sounds.
I am in control of this body, yes. This body technically belongs to me, yes. I was born into this body, yes.
People have trashed this body, yes. People have done things to this body that I don't approve of, yes. But no, this body is not their's. And it's not mine, either.
I don't mean that this body is for everyone else to use and manipulate and destroy. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that the body I've grown up in, isn't what I think of in my head. I mean there are parts of it that I've tried to cut off since puberty. And I don't know what it means. Everything about this body is foreign to me. It's got all these things about it that make me feel out of place. I don't know how to tell people what I feel about it because I barely understand it myself.
In the 6th grade, I exhausted myself trying to be as feminine as possible. With pink and skirts and dresses and the cute hairstyles and long hair. And in 7th grade I posted about how much I appreciated my femininity and I had an excessive amount of makeup. In 8th grade I pulled away from old girly friends who wore chevron and pink and blue and we're obsessed with all things beauty. I got a boyfriend and I forced myself to kiss him when I was scared. In the 9th grade, I started dressing "grungy" and loose but still feminine. I started hanging out with more boys, though. It was never because there was "less drama", but it was because I felt more comfortable with them. In the 10th grade, I started wearing baggy clothes. I forced myself to take photos of the body I felt distant from and send them to my ex who I knew was just using me for sex. I forced myself to let him grab me where he wanted even though just before, I stared at my chest in the mirror wishing it was flat. And now here I am, confused at myself and the way I forced so many things onto myself when I was uncomfortable with it all. I don't know what I feel. I don't know what I want. I just know that I don't want to force myself into anything anymore. I cut my hair; my mom said I look like a boy and my best friend told me I looked really masculine. It didn't feel weird when they said it. Unlike the times my dad said I looked like a "promising young woman". Or the times adults would say "what a lovely young girl".
I don't understand anything right now. I don't know what's going on my head. It's all so confusing and it makes me uncomfortable to say any of it.
All I know is that this body isn't mine and it never has been. I don't know how I can make it mine and make it a home for myself but I'll figure it out.
