This was from years ago that I wrote this:

The body is a space where various cultural, biological, aesthetic codes and signifiers interface and combine. In some cultures, the body gets scared, mutilated, tattooed to indicate a coming of age, status, and the passage of time. Aesthetic is narrative and appearances are important. While the outward presentation may not fully expose one’s inner workings, it does give a comprehensive summary of who you are and what you’re about in both subtle and not so subtle ways, but of course the message that’s intended and the message that’s received don’t always overlap. I first got a glimpse of this between the ages of 8-10 when I was going through puberty, and reached menarche at age 10. By age 11, I already had C cup breasts and looked mature for my age, cues for some older men to flirt with me, make advances towards me, and occasionally harass me. Of course my peers at the time wanted to join in on the spectacle at the oddity that I was. The idea that really took root in my mind was what it means to be female, and coming to understand what being female entailed. I hated my femaleness since it marked me. My body was a public spectacle for others to comment on, leer at, and grope, a thing that matured faster than my mind, not to mention having all the sexual desires of woman but not fully understanding what those desires are. I almost think these conflicting drives set up a precedent for the duration of my life in that there’s always the need for me to exert control. Control over my image, how I orient myself, how I seek to manifest my own values and vision, and a lot of that control was exercised through the many disciplinary, aesthetic, and punishing practices I inflicted on my body, learning and experimenting with different ways to tell stories with it.

In my preteens and early teens, I nearly developed an eating disorder in order to wash away my womanness, an identity at the time that I felt was thrusted upon me. But what also came from my strict exercise and diet regiment was a deification of self-discipline and control to extreme degrees. Through harsh and unforgiving discipline of the body and mind, I wanted to reach to some superhuman level of existence. I wanted to overcome all of my weaknesses, become this exceptional being that’s beyond reproach and human folly. I never become that being.

Since I was 8 to until about recently, I had severe acne and then the accompanying acne scars. All I saw was pus-filled, pulsating bumps and craters. Once again, I was marked. I felt like a leper, and I wanted to further embody that monstrosity. While making obsessive attempts to treat and hide my facial deformities, I would cut my body to ribbons and burn parts of my body (1st degree burns at most). Each new mark and blood trail was a new verse on this book of flesh. I wanted to be stigmataed with the inner workings of my psyche in all its accompanying rage-filled shame, bitterness, hate, hunger, and envy. I hated my body, the deformities on my face felt like a foreign force was occupying it, but at the same time there was a sacred reverence with each act of self-mutilation. I used to fantasize and dream about cutting off my own limbs and gouging out my own eyes as those acts represented the combination of my rage and a (twisted) control over my own body as well as the desire to be liberated from it. Nowadays I mostly stick to tattoos.

Sex is poetry made in flesh and blood. Past and present lovers leave little pieces of themselves on me with each individual fragment having a story to tell. A bite mark from a man who had a fetish for teeth marks on skin. A lipstick stain from the time when a woman was kissing me on the neck while I was feeling between her thighs. A razor blade cut from someone who thought my skin looked absolutely gorgeous all bloodied up. Here the need for control slowly wanes and at some point in time, all laid claim to my body and our stories collide. Over time the physical markings eventually fade, but the emotions, sensations, experiences are still coded within me.

The body is the main mode through which we navigate the world, and with that, I navigate the world by embodying all the narratives I weave.