Dear Daughter and All the Daughters,
 
Let’s talk about the body, about the female form and what it represents to us. It is our house, our home, the shell in which we plant our soul and pray for psychic rain to help us grow. It is the flesh that begets life, that sustains life after it’s born, and that nurtures with warmth and softness. Our body is our song to the world that tells the story of where we have been and where we are going, and it is uniquely, beautifully ours, and should be ours alone to behold.
 
Our body has become a symbol, a representative that ignores the feminine magic we carry inside. We no longer own our image, but have become part of a relentless cycle that whispers that we have no value unless the physical form reaches perfection for those who degrade its mysticism. We are told from our youth that women should look and be like unattainable visions that ignore the grace of our life experience. We are told that if we just lose 10 pounds, or 20, or workout daily to sculpt ourselves into something more palatable to others, we will be worthy of affection and interest. There is always a condition attached that creates the mental equation of if I do X, Y, or Z, THEN, and only THEN, will we obtain the secret resolution to unlocking value, and the imperfect abstract known as love.
 
Recently, I had a man on a dating app remark ‘pretty, but I still haven’t seen your body though.” Can I share how this statement took my confidence and slammed it on the ground in one swift motion? Suddenly, without my physical carriage, I was not enough. It was not enough that I am quick witted, highly intelligent, and funny. Not enough that I have a successful career, have raised four of the most beautiful people this planet has ever seen, can kill it on the dance floor, and write like words run through my veins. Not enough that I have impeccable taste in music, believe heavily in altruism, and love those I love with ferocity. How despite, all that I am, the one thing that he would hang his feelings of worthiness on was my body. MY BODY.
 
We cannot have this conversation without discussing the fact that for most women, their bodies are not a home where they feel safe. When only 12% of sexual abuse is reported, when 63% of sexual assaults stay unreported, and one in five women are sexually assaulted in college, the notion of the body as something comfortable to share becomes an abstract notion. How could the body feel like a place where you can open the door and welcome a stranger? How can you possibly share something that may have been violated, or damaged, because you owned such a body to begin with? When 2 out of 3 women are struggle with their weight and image issues, how can the body ever feel like anything more than a body of judgement?
 
When I read those words, I sat with them for several minutes. I no longer felt secure. I became the five-year old me again, fending off the advances of a teenage babysitter who merely wanted to ‘peek down my shirt’ because he was curious. I became the woman who lived through the indignity of sexual assault in my twenties, when it took me a year to stop the overwhelming feeling I had inherently done something that I couldn’t explain to attractive such a horrendous experience. Had I dressed too suggestively in my capris and a casual t-shirt? Did I say or do anything that indicated that I wanted him to touch and violate me? That noted self-blame is perpetuated with that same mental equation: if I did X, Y, or Z, then this would have never happened. Except that it did, because we have so degraded the body of women that there has been little we could do to stem the tide of men who feel that we are theirs for the taking.
 
I once again became the insecure, heavy girl in the room that I have been most of my life, and whom was teased relentlessly as such. I felt my insides crumble, and all the self-assurance I work so hard to pump into my being by being so many other things than just my body, ran straight out of my heart and collected in a puddle on the floor. I felt a mixture of inadequacy and violation that shook me to the core. For a second, I actually pondered, should I send something and risk the dreaded rejection that I will not be enough? Why do I even feel I have to do that?
 
But then I felt anger. Pure, white hot rage that caught fire to that puddle of self-assurance and fueled it into a phoenix screaming, “fuck this shit”. I thought who the hell do you think you are, that you are entitled to any parts of myself that I have not offered on my own. How dare anyone ask me for any piece of who I am without my permission? This is my body, my home, my shell, my place of refuge. You have just become an uninvited guest who thought he could walk right in without having to knock. Hell no.
 
So daughter, this was my response:
“So seeing my body is a requirement for whether or not you feel I might be worthy of attention? My requirements are intellect, depth, and that you’re generally not a dick. You’re failing on most fronts so I think we’re done here.”
 
I didn’t owe him a damn thing, and neither do you. There is no psychic debt floating through the universe that says we are obliged to indulge those who insist certain physical expectations should be more lauded than the hearts and souls we tend with loving care. There is no requirement that states that your body, your home, your sanctuary need be anything other than what you want it to be and love it be. There is nothing that exists that transfers the rights to your haven to anyone unless you, and you alone, decide that you willingly want to share it.
 
The Tinder man’s final reply was that ‘those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.” But it’s never about hiding anything. It is about vulnerability, self-love, and recognizing that the body merely houses all the essential, beautiful parts that are truly worth our attention and affection. It is about knowing who to let in the door, and who to block at the entrance. Because you, my gorgeous, amazing daughter, are a temple of the highest beautiful and grace, and deserve to welcome no one who will worship you for less than the total of who you are. You have every right to hide yourself from those who would do damage to your grace, and to determine for yourself what boundaries you place around those who gain entrance to any part of who you are, be it corporeal or intangible.
 
Cherish yourself for the goddess you are. I know, through your eyes, I am learning to do the same.
 
All my love...

Priscilla 1966
 
Priscilla seeks me in my dreams,
Alice Neel not invited
 
Her knees squeeze,
nervously glued,
leather flats scratching
the ochre carpet
without regard
for the spark she
could generate
 
Swirling colored rucksack of emerald,
kelly and aegean hangs
along her frame,
barely delineating a
delicate form beneath,
just hinting
of heavy breast
rising beneath the silk
 
Right hand floating
by her shoulder,
fingers flicking with quiet
urgency, releasing the
tension rippling across
her body
 
Left hand laid across her
lap, as if shielding
her from the desire
within
 
Her body, an endless grid
of light
and contrast, secrets
and hidden impulses
silently traveling her
vertical line
 
Coy hint of what
lies below
where
her thighs converge into
a quiet triangle
of muddled
shadow invoking
yearning
 
If only her eyes didn’t
carry the amber weight
of intensity
begging me to discover
what lies beneath,
tiny pinpricks where
my own lust
finds its reflection
 
If only she would move
her hand…

You asked me why I planted irises, why every spring I long for their arrival, waiting patiently as they burrow up through the skin of the earth, shooting up and sprouting open with aplomb. The easy answer is they are my favorite flower, but when is affection ever easy?
 
I fell in love with the iris at the age of 10, when a boy that I crushed on gave one to me, asking if I would date him. He was two years my senior, and he had a thin mustache and wiry, wavy, black hair. We lived in the same neighborhood, approximately 1.5 streets apart, and I had just moved to the concrete jungle of the city from a rural, small town. My mother, pregnant, had remarried, and my stepfather’s house on the slowly crumbling Northside of Pittsburgh became our new home. I met Chris that summer, and he was quickly one of my first friends. He was smart, funny, and we would spend hours taking shade and talking, escaping the heavy heat that swarmed the city.
 
He confessed his affection a few weeks after we met with a glimmering, periwinkle iris wrapped in a single sheet of tissue paper with a yellow, curling ribbon holding it together. I can still hear the crinkle as I peeked inside and felt my heart blush. It was gorgeous, with three small petals reaching their arms outward, and three curled inward to shelter the center. I was so excited that I went home to share the news with my mother, who was less than thrilled. I was instructed in no uncertain terms that I was too young to date, and that it was forbidden. Her concern was centered on what he ‘wanted’ from me, not how he might feel, or what he might see.
 
When I broke up with him the next day, my heart was dragging in a puddle on the floor. Chris was the first boy who truly saw me for myself. As a thick, curvy girl who struggled with her weight and image, it was one of the few times during puberty and the middle school years that I ever felt wanted. Despite my heaviness, he thought I was beautiful, and gave me a flower to prove it. I kept that iris, perfectly dried, until it crumbled and shattered into dust.
 
A small piece of my soul faded the day I had to turn away his genuine affection. It twisted my heart into a confused blob that didn’t feel I was worthy of endearment.  As I matured, I continued to struggle with my weight, and a constant voice that was quick to list the ways I was in inadequate, or why I did not deserve the happiness that seemed to flow easily for others. Mimicking the iris, I always held back a part of myself to protect the inner sanctuary of my heart, where I feel most tender and insecure.
 
Yesterday, I came across an exhibition of iris at the mall and spent over 30 minutes just walking flower to flower. The color palette was astounding: gold, virgin white, violet, magenta, pink. Some petals where divided by color, some were integrated with stripes or flecks. My favorite had ochre petals stretched to the skylight, with deep wine arms, delicately ruffled and flecked with white near the center of the bottom petals. It was the similar in shape and width to my fist, and I thought it ironic as I drank in its beauty how it rivaled the size of my heart.
 
Like the iris, I am hardy and reliable, and love butterflies and hummingbirds. In spring, with its promise of rebirth, I look forward to watching the world in the midst of revival, feeling I have the same opportunity for resurrection, and the chance that maybe this will be the year when I will wholly bloom. It is this perennial reassurance the iris brings that signals hope that one day, I too, shall completely unfurl and open everything I am to the sun.

My mind keeps rewinding
To search for any clue
How we got to this junction,
Where 'us' became an act of
Suffocation

When did we stop breathing
For each other? With each other?

Like a silent killer,
resentment seeped between us,
Filling the space where love
Once flowed

The sheet slipped so deftly
Over our heads, slowly tightening
Until every inhalation became a
Choking labor

A slow strangulation of
Too many regrets and memories
Where forgiveness wasn't enough
Where 'we' became
'You' and 'I"

Here in this room
Small mementos scatter like raindrops
Reflect memories of
The time we passed together
Before the world we created
Collapsed into silence

The vinyl from the shop on West San Francisco
Where we sipped chai
And felt the last of our love bloom
Before the descent of winter

A tied dyed ceramic bowl
From Elephant Butte where
We snapped a photo by the shore
Not yet aware of the disingenuity
Of our love

Each token is a ghost that
Reminds me of my solitude, and
The broken pieces of the 'us'
We forged, then shattered,
A lingering feeling the souvenirs
You sit and gaze upon are the
Shards of my fractured heart

The moments come
ever so brief
When your absence washes over me
bathing me in heartache

Like now,
When the lightening rages
outside my window
And there is no warm
body for security

I lie here wide
awake watching fragments of
the storm pass overhead
As if viewing our destruction
from the inside out

My heart beats with terror
and awe
Until the wind dies
and silence becomes the place
I've been longing to touch