Courage

 Some women can’t accept the fact that their body will never be perfect. If it’s not one thing, then it’s the other. Courage is a feeling of acceptance.

            Your mind is stuck in a glass wall. Dark colors fill your white room.  Sitting in your corner and you notice you’re surrounded with mirrors. No clothes. For it is only you and your bare body. You find your bad flaws as fast as you can find heat on a thermo detector. Your eyes find small pudgy flabs being created on your back. Convincing you to stop eating and wear jackets so no one can see. The mirrors taunt you to look for more. Teasing you to start making fun of yourself and bring hatred on yourself. You’re too scared to tell anybody. So you hide it. Your critical mind welcomes you.

            Many other horrible things can happen to you. Yet you get stuck in your mind, or you’re too scared the individual above you. Until that one moment surfaces you. Your hands clutch together and you step forward. Words are not spoken out. They are spit out to the face of yourself or your competitor. When your chance of glory finishes, your back loosens and your muscles feel brand new. A smile surfaces against your face. That feeling of acceptance has leaked through your whole body. The mirrors are smashed and cracked as they lay in pieces against the floor. That shadow that has always stood before you has disappeared for that the sun has come up. You freed yourself from your own prison. Only you had the key to the lock that sat in front of you. You were the chains that held your wrists and ankles down.

--Heather Ramos