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onehundredinkstains:

Fingers pressed over nose and
mouth, nothing left but tall lashes,
swollen pupils heavy with all I
should have never had to carry.

I remember nails pressed so
deeply into soft young skin I
thought I could feel cells
thickening with hatred.

I remember drum beats
on my body, looking up only
to see my own fists banging
on my chest.

I am very tired of thinking of nice bodies and gyms and healthy food and clean lungs when I try to figure out what being healthy means. And to be honest, I think the majority of people associate being healthy with a toned body, exercising, eating healthily, not smoking etc. 

However, I’ve realized that (to me) being healthy has little to do with nice bodies and gyms and healthy food. To me, people are healthy when they have found their balance. To me, healthy means living your life for yourself but finding joy in giving, in loving, in being nice, in caring. It means treating your body the way you feel is right. It means doing what you want to do, it means having found your passion. It doesn’t mean not smoking or not drinking (society is constantly telling us we should do things to live longer and that contributes to our forgetting about our freedom, you are allowed to make your own choices! No one made up a rule that said how to live or how long), or being skinny, or working out every day, it means being free. It means that you’re not trapped in life, that you are where you want to be or feel that you are able to go where you want to go. If you are obese and you don’t want to be but you feel unable to do what you want (which is losing weight), I think that is unhealthy, not the fact that you’re obese.

We should all feel free because that’s what we really are. If we don’t feel free we haven’t yet realized what life is about and what we are capable of doing. 

So, for once, I dare to say I’m going to focus on being healthy without being afraid to fail. Because before I’d be afraid to ‘slip up’, eat poorly, gain weight, whatever. This all has nothing to do with it anymore, I’ve realized. If you want ice cream, eat ice cream. THAT’S HEALTHY! Exercise because it makes you feel good. Listen very closely to your body and to your mind and to your heart. I’ll do whatever I want to do and I’ll try my best to give people love and I won’t forget to leave some for myself, because I deserve it. 

Days like these will always keep popping up, sometimes expected, sometimes out of nowhere. I will wake and beg my body back into denial, but it won’t work and eventually I’ll drag myself out of bed, hear my bones crack, feel the cold seep in like a sedative. I will sit down and try to write but the words will be stuck. People’s voices will feel like bullets, I will refuse to eat, or eat everything. I will wear hate on my skin like a tight dress. I will whisper “It will be better later” but everything will be heavier as soon as the night has fallen.

And I have to accept this, I have to accept that sometimes the beams of sunshine will not be able to reach me no matter how bright they shine. I’ll try to remember this, and so should you. The sun will rise again tomorrow. There’s always a second chance. Pull the blinds down if the world feels unforgiving today, curl up under as many blankets as you like, even in the summer. It’s okay to not participate today. Read until you fall asleep, let the dust settle. Try again tomorrow.