The weight of his words

 

He said
on the phone
“you have nice breasts.”

So I stand
under the bathroom lights
naked,

looking at my curves
this way and that,
cupping them,
releasing them,

feeling the weight of his words
and realizing

they’ve heard this kind of thing before....
from locker rooms
and whispered hallways,
from magazine covers
and dressing room mirrors,
from the silences
between my own clenched teeth.

Realizing
how often I’ve met myself
through someone else’s gaze,
like I’m only visible
when a man is looking,
only beautiful
when a man approves.

I lift my chin.
My hands rest, finally still,
warm against my skin.

Here,
in this cheap bathroom light,
it’s just me

and the soft slope of my body,
the rise and fall
that kept me alive
when no one was calling,
the chest that has held
every breath,
every sob,
every laugh that hurt my sides.

I think of all
these years together...
my heart and my lungs
and these ordinary miracles
of flesh...

and I say,
to my reflection,
to the curve of my own shoulder,

“Thank you.”

He can keep his compliment.
I am learning
to love what he noticed
for reasons
he will never understand.

​

© Sreedhari Desai