Our Bodies

Girls try to fit into society like a shirt that's just too tight
The same shirt that fits you
Would never fit me
To you it's baggy, loose
Plenty of room for mistakes
For me, it's an envelope of an unsent and unstamped birthday card
Useless
It's ripping at the seams
My body gasping for air
My lungs in a sleeve of self hatred
My arms being crushed down to the smallest they could be
My ribs cracking
At every extra-small tag I see
My hips no longer curvy and round
My thighs are being woven and maneuvered
In ways I never thought possible
My stomach grumbling to be like you
My heart aches for girls
Unknowing that they can reclaim their bodies
Our bodies are a casing
A treasure chest of gold
A treasure map where X marks the spot
But there's no reason to dig
The treasures already at the surface
The surface of our skin
A dance floor
An ice rink
Not meant for tap shoe metal or ice skate blades
Our bodies are a ballroom
With a chandelier reflecting the light from a million full-moon nights
Our bodies are church with stained glass windows
Our bodies are the sunlight
The moonlight
The foggy mornings
The ocean currents
Our hips the curvy highways
We take to get away
The scenic route
Our bodies are yesterday
Our best friends body is a morgue
Their body is the mortician
Picking out the worst parts of ourselves
But why only display the best at the funeral?
Our bodies are an open casket
A closed casket for the more gruesome perfectionists
Our bodies are the hearses
Carrying others to their graves
We don't realize we're burying eachother 6 feet under
Our bodies are the veils at our wedding days
Covering our eyes, the windows to our souls
They say eyelids are as thin as butterfly wings
But how thin are they with all that makeup on it?
Our bodies are stripped like our favorite acoustic covers
Our bodies are the guitar strings
Being plucked at a concert
Our bodies are clothed like our children on those bier cold days
Our bodies are the wind blowing through our unbrushed hair
Our bodies are a breath of fresh air
Invading the lungs of many
Our bodies take time
Our bodies are everything we know
But beyond our bodies is everything we need to know
Beyond our bodies
Those butterfly wings open up
The love of your life lifts the veil
On our wedding days
We see through the stained glass windows
Beyond our bodies
We dance until we crumble
Our hips twisting and snapping
Bruising and bleeding
In ways we never thought possible
Our toes gliding but scraping
We get blisters, but we don't care
Our bodies are the band-aids
We use to heal the damage hidden behind our skin
Our bodies are the past
The present
And the future
It's time to rip off those band-aids
To let our bodies heal
To set our bodies free