I remember sitting in a camp counselor’s lap holding my breath because I thought my 8 year old body was too heavy for her to want to hold it. 

when Callie who got boobs early told me my 13 year old body was built like a brick wall in front of my then-boyfriend. after we broke up she kissed him behind the movie theatre and she told me about it on the phone.

looking at my thighs in paisley shorts when I was 16 and seeing cellulite and my heart sinking.

the summer before college where I took a spin class every morning and waited to see how long I could go before having a yogurt.

when my grandmother wrinkled her nose at a customer who couldn’t fit into size 8 Yves St Laurent, which was the biggest size. 

when I lived in Italy and ate pasta twice a day and felt sexier than I ever have in my life until a boy snaked his arm around my waist without asking and patted my stomach.

when my best friend announced she was only going to eat almonds.

and I remember every time I have looked at another woman and made comparison our first interaction.

this thing with judgement, this viciousness, this obsessiveness, this please let me be at least a 7 out of 10, this butter faces, this pretty face with an ugly body, this nipple size and vagina shape and frizzy hair and juicy couture and thigh gaps and g-strings no gag reflex and oh my god, you know we are only here for a maybe century?

oh my god, how much time have I wasted looking to be a knock off when I am a fucking limited edition?

oh my god, when I realized that I had never had a crush on a woman because I was only looking at girls who looked like me, when I realized that if two puzzle pieces were actually the same no one would buy the game, when it dawned on me that we are taught that judgement synonymous with the air we breathe and we never had a chance to live without it.

when I had to teach myself how to introduce my heart instead of my height, my wisdom instead of my waist, my softness instead of my smile, that no one ever told me we hated each other because it was pre-packed into our lunchables, that if I totaled my timesheet of hours spent getting drinks with judgement I’d be a fucking alcoholic, that my mother saying happiness is an inside job was a prophecy of how hard it would be, that I could have built an empire of empathy in the time I spent wondering why my so low pants didn’t stay up when that girls did.

we will spend our whole lives unlearning lessons we were never given the syllabus for. and that is only if we choose to bear the weight of invisible chains.

there are some who will always feel heavy.

I am uninterested in those preaching female empowerment without admitting how we have imprisoned each other, first. 

if it is our right to carry the key, then we better stop losing it.