She is
**** and
***.

You show her friends her picture on your phone.
And she is the
Slim sensual figure in their
Sick ****** fantasies.

And she is not
the brain that learning gave her or the
Woman that her parents made her.  

She is every fear her father ever had becasue she is
"Boys will be boys"
and a "healthy" fear of men.

She is every warning ever fallen off of Mother's lips because she is
"Tell us what you were wearing".

She is the careful avoidance of
"Let me buy you a drink"

She is the fear of walking down a dark alley by herself but
turning the corner anyway,
because if she can't even walk herself home,

What kind of life is she living?

She is a culture perpetuated by misplaced blame and the thought
that hormones override self control,
that "I want" is more powerful than

"Please stop."

She is the belief that her body
your body
my body

Our bodies

Are nothing more than tempting.  
Nothing more than pleasure.

You know that she is more.

More than just
a
curvy
prize.

I have always loved me better
in the dark.
Because from a young age, I was made to understand that my body was not made for hands to wander in the light.
That my body, like a favorite pillow, was best loved in the dead of night, lights off, because in the darkness my soft is acceptable.
I am not a size that is packaged nicely.
I am plus size floral print, because that’s what fashion thinks girls my size are.  Plus sized floral print. Delicate, but never in the right way.
I am a size that is too loud.
I have been taught to love black,
Been taught that my body is best when covered, ankles to wrists in a color that was once reserved for those mourning losing what they loved.  
I am better if covered like I am dealing with chemical reactions,
because other people are volatile, and after all if not built for pleasing others,
than what am I?
I have been conditioned to believe that softness is appreciated everywhere except where can be seen.
That my voice is meant to be soft,
my words,
my opinions,
But not my body.
I am wrong in the one way that I most desire validation
.

He tells me that I am right.
His favorite item of my clothing is a short pink dress that I never want to wear, because he tells me I am beautiful, and I am afraid that I am being lied to.  
He pulls at sweater sleeves until they come off, and stares at my arms like they are something to be revered.
Tugs on pant legs until they meet the floor, tells me that I am all the right shapes, and I cry.
I have never been the right shape, as hard as I have tried.
I have always been too big of a circle, trying to shove myself into a smaller square,
I am the block a child can not fit into a different shaped slot,
I have never understood.  
I am reminded that rivers cannot be contained, that banks are broken by their power, that man made dams cannot contain forces of nature.
I am a force of nature, he says.

He loves me better,

in the light.

She longs for the ocean.
Salty skin, the sound of waves,
a cool breeze rolling off of the water.

He is the sea.  
His skin tastes like the water she has never seen.  
His heartbeat echoes through his ribs, beat out, take in,
the sound of waves in human form,
crashing through her fragile bones,
drowning her in memories she never thought she'd have.

She is a storm.  
Volatile and unsure,
droplets falling from her eyes at just the whisper of a cloud.
He is the mountain upon which her thunder rolls,
the meadow that best receives her sunshine.

He is her calm.

I wish I could tell you that I will watch you die.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be morbid here, but I heard that in a song once.

Love is watching someone die.  

And I want to tell you that no matter what is happening in your life, I want to be there at your side.  That wherever you go, you’ll find me, like your shadow.
You can stand on the top of the world’s tallest mountain, or be laying in a hospital bed,
and even though I’m scared of heights and needles,

I’ll be there,

next to you,

drinking you in.  

Like your fingers, you can count on me.  Like a calculator, like a child counts his steps in the hallway, you can count on me.  

I’ll be solid when you are soft.  
When you can’t hold yourself together, I’ll be your staples.  
When you feel like you are losing parts of yourself, I’ll find them.  I’ll hand them back to you.  
When you’re breaking, I’ll hold you, and I’ll tell you that even the most beautiful statues have their cracks, and they are all the more beautiful because of them.  
I'll tell you that the Japanese repair broken pottery with liquid gold,

and there is yellow coursing through your veins.

I wish I could whisper “You are beautiful” at every single one of your weakest moments.  

Maybe someday I will.  

Maybe someday you’ll believe me.

When you can’t, I promise I can.
When you won’t, I will.
If you need to leave, I’ll stay.
You will forever be the one thing that I am seeking to complete, even if I don’t quite know who you are yet.
Yours will be the side that I will fit into, like the last piece of a thousand piece puzzle.
I will search for you, until I have found myself.
And when you are laying there, in a room that scares me, in a place full of sounds that I don’t recognize, as you exhale for the last time,
I’ll inhale.

I will finish your last action.

I won’t flinch, or flee.

Because

*love is watching someone die.