In class I learned that everything is made of atoms. The entire human body is made of atoms. I learned that atoms are mostly empty space, housing only a small amount of matter in the center, at the heart. My body is mostly empty space. All my matter is about as big as a raisin. All my love for things and people, my heartbreaks, my sadness, my scars, my anger; can fit on the head of a pin. I can’t figure out why I take up so much space when I’m so empty inside. I can’t figure out why all these years of evolution, all the way back to the Big Bang and how we all came to be from nothing, made big bodies that house so much in so little. I can’t dissolve and fold into myself, I cannot disappear. Lost into space. I am here and I take space. I’m sorry. I wish I could compact myself, push until I’m so small you cannot find me underfoot, I wish that I could disappear. But I can’t. And neither can you. I am here. I am alive. My body is alive. And I will not hurt it. I will not push it, I will not force it to be smaller than it is because all those years of evolution, the heat of making me exist, the pain, the sacrifice, made my body into what it is today. I will not disrespect that process, I will not disrespect the force that made my soul be. I will live inside this empty home and I will love until it fills every space in my goddamn body. I will love my body until it is brimming with it. I will love everything that made me be until I am not empty anymore. Because my soul is bigger than a raisin, my soul is what makes me be, my soul is in all that empty space and I will not crush it. I will not limit myself to a head of a pin. I am so much more than that. And so is every part of my body. -illustrated and written by Tiara Dewintha |