you ever just get distracted
by how nice you look shirtless?
because this is a new thing to me
admiring what a skilled surgeon
was able to craft out of
so much extra
wasted
useless
skin

and i spent 9 years
clawing at the inside
and outside
of my body
trying to cut out
what made me feel so trapped
and wrong

i was not nice
to my body
this vessel that houses
the very essence of who
of what
i am

i did not know how
to love the peaks
and valleys of flesh that
i only wanted gone
soft in what felt like
all the wrong places

and i am still learning
to love this body
sculpted into a form
i know how to live with
to live in

pt.2
and i am apologizing
to all the parts of me
that bore the brunt of
this journey to
the man i was always
meant to be

this is a love letter
to my body
to the scars where my
******* used to be
that a dear friend
and then my mother
carefully bandaged for weeks
when i couldn’t bear to
look at them

this is for my
soft tummy
my thighs that jiggle
when i walk
for every part of me
that i once hated

this is for being able
to look at myself
in the mirror
and speak softly about
the softest parts of me

this is a love letter
to the little girl i never was
to the little boy i yearned to be
to the man i have become
and the body that carried me

this body that
sustained me
and this body that
refused to die