Joey

Illustrated by Ella Clayton.

*content warning - body dysmorphia and eating disorder

three weeks away from you and i am standing in the mirror like superwoman. hands on my hips, with a wide stance: 

not because i don’t want my thighs touching; for once 

i am standing up for myself. 

and i realise: 

i like my stomach full like a kangaroo pouch. 

granted, i’ll never keep a kid in there 

but i won’t wait for new life to be grateful 

for my body, or another excuse 

to be neglected again 

i thought that being neglected again was the right way to be a mother? but my brain is secondary evidence 

of why you can’t always learn on the job, 

and i don’t want to be your nepotism baby. 

i’ve never looked in the mirror this long before. 

perfectionism makes it hard to pay attention to detail 

and yet, as always, 

i'm still doing it. 

echoes of our last chastising still cloud the air, 

but this time something is different; 

i can actually see 

that being collateral damage of emotional baggage 

doesn’t make me broken 

— and these stretch marks are not battle scars! 

my body is just tear stained 

from all the times it begged me to let you accept that 

i can never be a chandelier but stained glass is pretty too, 

it’s incredible how much i hated 

myself just because you wanted me to. 

i’m scared of how different my body feels when i stand up by myself and you’re not there to tell me how to look. 

never thought i could compare 

myself to an animal and like it 

but i can’t keep waiting for you to humanise me, 

yearning for a future tense 

that has always been conditional… 

i can still see your ghost in the mirror sometimes.

hiking an arm’s distance through my veins 

to make firewood of my collarbones; 

you always did love setting up camp on my left shoulder. 

then, 

for the jump to my lobe 

you are 

(like always) 

poised, 

ready to slander me 

— but my body has a voice now, honey! 

and She wants me to call her Joey.