I Want a Body Well Loved

Abigail Mandlin

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I want a body well loved:

With bruises and scrapes, from high-flying adventures;

with stretch marks and scars, from loving too much too fast;

with belly rolls and pockmarks, from growing into my skin with the years;

with gray hairs and eye bags, from loving other people well into the night;

with stained teeth and freckles, from not denying myself a treat;

with wrinkles and chapped lips, from bracing my wizened smile against the wind;

with gouges and incisions and red marks and age spots,

from all the times I should’ve died

but didn’t.