beautiful.

i hate my stretchmarks
the vertical   the horizontal  the ones running miles down my arms
stripes on a circus tent
my body is a freak show
75 cents a ticket

they are the bars on a cage
trapping me inside this prison cell of flesh
                                   (not letting me run away
                                           from all i once was)
reminding me that i am 
still that little girl who 
was told that she had too
much weight in her stomach
and in her thighs 
to be called beautiful

my stretchmarks are the debris from when i tried to collapse upon myself
tried taking up less space 
because beautiful is small  beautiful is skinny
diets upon diets
because i've been told that
i am only worth the sharpness of my collarbone

                    no
      no 
             no


this is not beauty

being forced to become one way is not beauty
this is not beauty
and i shall believe that i am beauty 
in all of my forms
because i am proud
proud of this body
proud of these stretchmarks     

people keep misreading this morse code as ugly
but i know it has only ever spelt warrior

and maybe i won't feel this way 
a month from now, a week from now,    tomorrow
feelings change   bodies change   people change
because we are like trees
constantly growing, rearranging our limbs
to reach for something greater than what we came from

but somewhere along the sides of my bark i wish
to carve in these words
                   (so on days where i cannot find the strength to love myself
                                       i can remember that for one day i was a girl
                                                      star-crossed in love with her body)
i wish to carve in:


          i love my stretch marks


they remind me 
that i am human:
irregular, imperfect
beautiful          for being alive