“your body is so beautiful,” he whispers to me, 2:30 am parked in my driveway, breath heating up the windows, hands tracing patterns on my skin

your body is so beautiful. this is a body that has stepped on the scale eight times a day, brain noting every slight change in the number that blinks back. your body is so beautiful. this body has cried from hunger pains, has sat on ***** bathroom floors with ******* pressed inside my throat, praying for strength i didn't have

your body is so beautiful. a body that has spent countless hours in front of the mirror, picked apart and scrutinized from every angle; a body that’s been stuffed and starved, emptied and filled, hated and cursed – this is it, this is the body he means

i’ve known boys who have used words as nothing more than keys to unlock doors inside me, who have strung together letters and sounds as nothing more than a means to achieve an end. i’ve known boys who have made promises never intended to be kept, whispered words in parking lots and quiet cars and city streets that have never amounted to what they implied

“your body is so beautiful,” he whispers to me, and against all odds, he means it. and even if he doesn’t, to like this body when i’m with him is enough, to feel at home in this skin is enough

and to hold his hand in mine is enough,
and to see him smile at me from across the room is enough