Dear Body

There has been a lot of "Dear Body, I love you" letters floating around lately. I have no problem with people appreciating their own bodies, so long as they look like Scarlett Johansson. For the rest of us, this is how you do a proper Dear Body letter:

Dear Body,

You alone are by far the worst aspect of my life. If I could live disembodied -- in the air, in a jar, whatever it takes -- I would do it to get away from you. In case you are confused as to why this might be, I will explain.

Starting at the bottom, I hate your feet. Your toes are hairy and your ankles are fat. If you watch TV too long, your feet swell and it makes putting on shoes again to take the dog out uncomfortable. Not to mention they are large for a woman, so even when shoes fit they don't look right.

Your legs are an abomination. Not only are your ankles fat, but so are your calves. You might as well be one tube of flesh between the knee and ankle, forget any Homeric epithets about well-turned ankles. And your veins! You're so young and already you're starting to get spider veins. It doesn't help that your skin there refuses to tan. At all. You might as well go audition for Powder: The Sibling.

Wait, we're not done with the legs. We haven't even seen the half of it. Those knees you've got are a joke. Not only do they manage to have their own rolls of fat, they are useless at the job of Knee. Forever breaking down, too sore to do this or that. It's obnoxious is what it is. Going up the leg is no better, because the nickname ThunderThighs was invented for you. Shorts are revolting on you, and impossible to fit anyway because of that weird flare you do right before the crotch.

Before we list all the fuck-ups of your snatch (get it? get it? haha), your ass is gonna some. What a pathetic excuse for a body part. Not even when you were young was this an attractive ass. It is both repulsively large and flat as a board, with a texture like cottage cheese. Nobody wants to touch that. Just seeing it nekkid has caused more than one man to soften immediately.

Now that we have that out of the way, about this snatch of yours. It's hairy. Yeah, I know no one naturally porn-star smooth, but you aren't supposed to be hairy *inside* the lips. It's freakish and impossible to shave without the risk of cutting your clit right off. And speaking of the clit, why do you have to be so damned difficult to get off? Men get bored with your "Let's savor the moment" excuses as to why it's taking so long. And speaking of taking so long, there's got to be something wrong with your scent or taste, because no one seems to want to go down on you very often. I can't tell, because your nose is also worthless (don't worry, we'll get back to that one). Before I let you off the hook, you also have to know that your tempermental nature regarding infection is a royal pain. No sugar binges or fruit juice, or you'll tip towards a yeast infection. It is the rare man who doesn't give you a bladder infection from oral sex, and god help us both if he had wine with dinner or else you'll have both a bladder infection *and* a yeast infection. Ugh.

Oh, and one other thing. I know you like sex; we both do... but just because a guy is finger-banging you doesn't mean you need to turn into Niagra Falls. Seriously, a guy once asked if we had just peed on him because you got so wet. It's gross. Stop it.

Ok, now onwards and upwards. Your whole pelvic area is a pain in the ass to clothe. Nothing fits as it should: either your ass is too big, or your hips too wide, or your belly too poochy. The beer-gut looking fat that hangs over your pants is *not* attractive. You're not a guy, you don't get a Buddha-belly. And while we're on it, the inside doesn't function too well either. Milk, vegetables, cheese, tomatoes, peanut butter, chocolate ... the list goes on and on of foods you won't digest properly. If you sit still after eating, forget about pants fitting for the rest of the day too.

Your ribcage isn't quite as revolting as the rest of you, even if it is swaddled in fat and even underneath it all still too big for a woman.

Your breasts are just kind of . . . sad. Men get excited when they hear your bra size, but it's all downhill from there. Disappointment is inevitable when they see your sagginess and stretch marks. When we're not quite so fat, it's no better because then the breasts just look deflated. I wouldn't want to play with those, and neither would anyone else. Even if they did, it wouldn't do much good -- the skin there is practically numb to normal touch.

Your shoulders, like your ankles, fail in the dainty department. They are large and round, and mostly just evince an aura of "workhorse".

Your arms are an annoyance all their own. Your under-arm chicken wings are unattractive in the extreme, and people comment on those gooseflesh-like bumps on the skin in your tricep area. Your elbows have their own repugnance, with their little rolls of fat and perpetually dry skin. I think it's bizarre the only skin that tans is your forearms; that wouldn't be so bad except it looks ridiculous against the rest of your skin. Your hands are abnormally large for a woman's, and if glove-makers are any indication they are also oddly proportioned. They are work hands, with thick fingers, undainty nails, and thick skin.

Back up to your neck, or where it ought to be. Yours is short and fat, and partially obscured by a roll of chin fat. It doesn't help that after you got sick that one time, your nodes never really deflated -- you could die of anorexia and still have a large throat.

From here on up is the worst of it. Really. Your skin is horrible, breaking out at the slightlest provocation. It also manages to be both dry *and* oily in the same places at the same time. Makeup is a pipedream, so you look perpetually unprofessional. Your ears don't have earlobes like a normal person, they connect to the jawline like an elf; it would be cute if you were 5 feet nothing and 100 lbs, but you're not so it's not. It just looks like a deformity.

Your mouth is ugly: you have almost no upper lip, your lower lip is pouty, your teeth are crooked and too yellow, you mumble when you talk. You also get cold sores, which some people humiliate us by calling a STD. It's not though. I can't take you to restaurants, because you're likely to break out if the silverware and dishes aren't perfectly clean. Drinking out of pop cans and sharing drinks is off-limits, as is touching anywhere near the lips while out and about in the world before your hands are washed thoroughly. Dating is impossible: kiss a guy and he thinks I don't like him because you can't see him for two weeks after due to the resulting outbreak.

Your nose is too big, and it's only function appears to be torturing me with it's largeness as only the most pungent smells permeate into the brain. Your eyes get the occasional compliment, but that's because it's really, really difficult to have ugly eyes. I am sure, though, that you'll succeed someday. Anyway, the eyes don't get any points because you make me blind as a bat without contacts or glasses. Your eyebrows make Brooke Shields' unibrow look over-groomed, and your forehead is too big.

Your scalp is it's own nightmare, being permantly afflicted with dandruff. And the hair! Oh god, the hair. It is thick, thick, thick, and there is a lot of it. I don't just mean length, I mean strands-per-inch. This sounds like a hairdresser's dream, except the hair is also dry as straw. I have plied you with creams and oils and conditioners galore, and it makes not a whit of difference. This is particularly ironic because, like your face, your hair is also oily. Oily and desert-dry at the same time. If it wouldn't make us even uglier, I'd shave it all off.

What's inside the skull isn't any improvement either. It's my responsibility, but ultimately it's your fault because you have the neurons and cells that make me Me. I am depressive and boring and of only mediocre intelligence, and I'm not surprised that even in this world of "what's inside is what counts" that I can't be loved.

Body, I am sorry if this letter has gone on and on. Your faults are many, and I just thought you should have a comprehensive list. You really are an albatross around my neck, and when we die I will be glad to be rid of you.

Forever loathing you,
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