‘Apology To My Body’ by Megha Rao

Body, you are a miracle.

Blemish, dark spot and mole; cellulite, layered skin, or skeleton frame, they (who they?) decided numbers for you.

Waist sizes, hip sizes, thunder thighs, needle arms, beautiful, ugly (skinny, fat, thin, curvy, busty, chubby, blah, blah, blah).

But body, know this; when I pick up a weapon to threaten your power, when I fall prey to social concepts of the ideal you, I am forgetting how beautiful you are (women shattering their backs on treadmills and pained joints bursting out of peer pressure, teenage girls living on leaves and air, throats sucking back undigested food in an attempt to satisfy their minds’ bulimic orders)-

Body, I should never have seen you as an enemy; as a platform (an empty wall to rage on and design catastrophe).

Because when you hurt, I earthquake.

I earthquake at the highest level on the Richter scale.

I have betrayed you. What, body, is the remedy?

Body, allow me to decorate you; allow me to deck you with praise (physical pain will no longer remain under the monarchy of mental anguish, because I love you)-

I won’t punish you anymore, for the wrongs I was wronged by others, for society’s burdens.

Body, you are a torch, a flame, a lightning goddess; you give me matchstick hands and inflammable eyes; our tongue is made of snakeskin and whiplash, our skin is a heritage of victorious truths and vibrant battles.

Body, you and I-we are a village of snowflakes and storms, and we will refuse to do anything but roar back at the thunder and shine back at the sun

(and when you hurt, I earthquake).

When they talk about you, I landslide, but I rebuild; I tsunami and destroy homes of evil; you are something to be worshipped.

Body; beautiful, beautiful body- I promise I will never again make you a rebound on which I explode into hysteria-I will not destroy my beautiful self.

Body, I will respect you and kneel at your altar (And for all the times I have taken my frustration on you)-

For all the punching windows-

The kicking walls and slitting wrists-

And the vomiting food and burning skin-

Body-

I am sorry.

Author’s Bio:

Megha RaoMegha Rao is a third year UG student doing her B.A. English course in Madras Christian College, Chennai. She lived in Singapore for ten years, and moved to Kerala when she was in her sixth grade. She published her first novel, Alice: The Netherworld in 2012 and its sequel, Alice: The Inferno Conspiracy in 2014.

She started writing when she was six. She used to make comic books and create characters. She loves sketching and painting, and is an avid fan of Josephine Wall. She currently blogs at www.meao95.blogspot.com

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