You are 17 and you walk along people filled streets - clasped palms
wrapped with intertwined fingers, rushed spoken words, faces flushed
from love. You have never been in 2 way love; loved but never been loved. You
often wonder to yourself if it was perhaps the size of your waist, the
dark circles that held your oyster of your eyes, the size of your thighs
or the extra lipid around your belly and arms that made boys turn away
the moment they met you. "Slow and patient", your momma would say. "Good
things come to those who wait." But when? When will someone finally look at you
as if you held their entire world in your eyes? When will someone leave
his fingerprints on the atlas of your body, whispering your name while
tracing freckle to freckle to form constellations? What if nobody saw beyond the size 30 skirts
you bought at Forever 21, the fact that you never wore crop tops
because you never had abs - hell, you never had a flat stomach, and the
fact that nobody would ever pick the dried, wrinkled raisin in a jar of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies?
You are impatient, young one. There is more to see, beyond the 4 letter
word. Do not under any circumstances place your barely beating heart
into the hands of someone who has butter fingers. Do not beg him to take
it, to take everything, and every part of your soul. When he leaves you
will have to painstakingly attach it back among the broken bones of
your rib cage. Nobody is going to dive in and plant flowers within,
nobody is going to uncover your demons and speak to them one by one and
find out why they've been pulling you down. Do not look at girls with
tiny waists, deep collarbones, locks of luscious hair, defined
cheekbones, full lips, and wonder why they had everything you didn't and
could only wish to have. Do not run after boys who flee after looking
at your thighs. Do not give your 4am thoughts away to the boys who throw
you a lifebuoy and tell you to "stop trying to breathe underwater and
start to float". Do not listen to boys who tell you not to eat because
you are fat. Instead, stuff a piece of your favourite cake into your
mouth and tell them to shut their trap. Do not look at boys with defined
abs and broad shoulders and think "I'm not good enough." Do not look at
quiet, geeky boys and think "He is not good enough for me", and do not
look at boys with double chins and a belly and think "Never in my life".
Be humble but keep your head up - you may not have the golden ratio but
you have a full heart and a soul just as full, if not, fuller. One day,
a boy will come into your life and his lips will interlock with yours
and it will fit like an induced fit model. His hands will wrap around
yours and his thumb will rub against your knuckle when you feel alone
and tired and breathless. His fingers will trace your skin, turning it to water and leaving tiny goosebumps behind. He will come into your life and it will be
like finding the right keyhole to your key. He may not be part of the 3
categories above, nor may he be your "ideal one", but he will fill your
head with thoughts of him, and he will bring light into the darkest
areas of your body. He will listen to your demons, coax them and love
you for you and your love handles, for your bruises, scars and jar of
saline-filled tears collected over the years. He will swim with you and
teach you how to breathe underwater so you won't drown, and he will
guide you - he will trace the lines on your palm and cup your cheeks in
his hands gently, and think you are beautiful. He may say it quickly and shyly,
and it may pass as softly and instantaneous as the whisper of the
breeze, or he may say each syllable slowly and surely for you to hear.
Either way he will mean it, and he will stay.
Remember, you are 17, not 71. Wait for him.
