Life is too short for shame

I think to myself when I tap away on Instagram, a friend, she

was eating a full bowl of pasta, beautifully arranged, a glass of deep red wine next to it, truffle grated like thinly sliced pieces of paper, floating

“Pasta and pizza every day! No shame!” She writes, 

I reply, 

Life is too short for shame! 

I think about all the ways my body has contorted over the years, 

impossible shapes,

Life is too short for shame! 

I think of what it means to feel free, and I 

remember all the ways I tried to make myself smaller, maybe if I didn’t take up so much space, then maybe that would make me more palatable,

easier to digest,

Life is too short for shame! 

Watch me grab it by the throat.

Watch me exorcise it with my bare hands.

Shame is stone-cold liquid running down the body, a viscous thing, a thing that makes you invisible but so, so heavy, it becomes so difficult to live with

Life is too short for shame! 

I draw the liquid forcibly, I grasp at it with both hands, it’s running down my arms, metallic and dark and overwhelming,

life is too short for shame!

Watch me grab it by the throat.

Watch me exorcise it with my bare hands.