My Body

i learned my body

the way people learn enemies—

by watching closely,

by flinching first.

mirrors became witnesses,

never kind, never silent.

every curve a crime,

every softness a failure.

i shrank myself into apologies,

into numbers, into “almost enough,”

believing if i disappeared neatly

i might finally be seen.

now i know

—it was never my body that was toxic,

it was the voice

that taught me to hate living in it.