When you look at me... am I beautiful?
My stomach is the one thing I feel I have control over, or maybe I have hoped my stomach is something I could get control over. I see how my stomach has come to occupy my attention. I have bought into the idea that if my stomach were flat, then I would be good and I would be safe. I would be protected. I would be admired, accepted, important, loved. Maybe because most of my life I have felt wrong, dirty, guilty, and bad and my stomach is the carrier, the pouch for all the self-hatred. My stomach has become the toxic dump for my sorrow, childhood scars, unfulfilled ambition and unexpressed rage. I am my own victim, my own prerpetrator.