From Body To You.
Oh, how replaceable I am to you! You slouch as you walk with little thought of how you are forever bending me. You are so basked in pursuing people’s love that you fail to love me. You want them to affirm you and continuously forget that I keep your soul intact. You hover back and forth thinking about inevitable things. You feed me junk and assume that I will stand among the greatest with confidence. Don’t you see what other bodies are fed? You would rather laze around and sink in the deep melancholy of how I can never be enough than do simple squats to maintain me. All your soul needs is a healthy me and not Tshepo who left without saying goodbye.
Oh, how I watched you take all the beatings as if you can buy another me at a pawn shop. You have reduced me to a mere nothing. On top of not loving me, you add bruises so you can hate me till kingdom come. You don’t appreciate the things I do for you. Why do you cry for other bodies not to leave while I am here for you? You have housed your soul in their bodies so much that you’ve reduced me to something that only offers you mobility. You fail to appreciate that your soul is nothing without me. These bodies that you are so hung up on, you wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for me.
In a room filled with people, you doubt that I can make you belong. In your eyes, I can never be beautiful. You don’t trust that I can mingle with them. You have allowed me to take on a small voice which no one wants to listen to. You sit there watching and wishing that I could have looked like this one and my nose be smaller as that one. Your behavior is as if at the death of me, your soul would belong. You shower them with compliments yet your soul fails to direct me to the mirror. You can’t stand there and tell me how beautiful I am. Oh, how I yearn to hear you tell me how much you love my beautiful bug eyes.
Nothing that I am will ever be beautiful to you. Tell me, am I the one with the problem or is it your soul that’s so messed up that you fail to see beauty in me? At the sight of these stretch marks thundering from the waist down to your thighs, you would rather hide me and put a sari even when you know that the swimsuit is fetching. Oh, how you bought this bleach for me because your favorite celeb constantly lightens her skin and you can no longer bear this darkness. Wake up from this trance you are in! She has money for expensive stuff. And if the sight of her puts you in a great depression, why do you follow her? I have seen beautiful dark women on your timeline but you are so convinced that she is worth your attention to points where you fail to see inspiration in others. This person is endorsed and she can pay for proper stuff. Why are you acting as if you haven’t seen other bodies tortured by this cheap stuff? Apply them on me and I will peel off and turn pink. Then I will be green and give off the impression that I reek like a dead animal. These things aren’t for me. Why do you have to act as if there’s something wrong with me?
You have taken other people’s perceptions of me and made them my own. There’s a lot that these bodies you devotedly yearn for don’t tell you. You would rather torture my brain with endless questions of how people have flawless skin. Nothing about me can ever be good enough. I have watched you build a man who broke you instead. He left you hating me even more. Each time someone stares at me, you think that they are bashing these dark marks over my eyes. Thembi, you are not living in me for the first time.
Oh, how you wish that at the sight of a picture you post, people would retweet, like and comment. You never get the attention you crave for. You remove the picture even after I had to endure 100 shots for you to find one that’s better. It’s not an expensive wig that I need or special effects make-up that could transform me into a beautiful creature that makes me beautiful. You make me beautiful. I house you to beautify me.
I have watched so many burnt victims embracing their beauty and prayed so hard that nothing of sort happens to me. God knows if anything befell me, you would end us both without even blinking. Love me. Take care of me and embrace everything about me. There’s a lot that these people you see online aren’t telling you. Stop torturing me to live up to the standards of this world. Yesterday thin women were embraced and now thick is the new sexy. Tomorrow, I will be the new sexy but you will fail to embrace me because depression will take us both to an early grave. Oh, how you ignorantly forget that I was made with great perfection. Someone took time for me. I am one of a kind and not embracing me strains my psyche. I hope that this message finds you well and that it will allow you to remember that with one body comes one life. There’s no other life waiting for you to love me.