The most magnificent machine on earth

My dear body,
You are an amazing thing. You have grown from a single cell into a tiny baby in your mother’s womb. You suffered the trauma of birth to come into this world, to be mine. You do what my consciousness asks, you hold me within you. My emotions are expressed through you with your smile, hands that speak for me and warm tears that flow when I am sad. My feelings and hormones rage through you, you allow me to feel, be touched and caressed. Through you I can experience pleasure and I can feel pain. My thoughts, fears and hopes resound in your cells. We are one, mind and body, relying on each other as we grow together.

Yet, when I look at your reflection, I criticise you as all I see is flaws. I wonder how anyone could find you lovable, beautiful or attractive. When we wake, I touch you, not gently and with reverence for all that you are, but squeezing and poking, unable to face another day looking at what you have become. Often I measure you, sometimes I photograph you and occasionally I weigh you. Some days when I really don’t like you, I claw you and scratch you, maybe even hit you. Regardless of what I do, I blame you for what you are and how you make me feel. I can’t accept you until you are perfect. I have told you that I will not love you until then because what is there to love?

I’m sad for us my dear body, because I have made us both suffer. Please believe that there is still hope, that I will make better choices for us, so that we may both work together to be healthy and happy. Please believe that I will learn to love you regardless of the reflection. Please believe that you are beautiful not because of how you look, but that you are a miracle and you are mine.