By Courtney Taylor

I am fat. I am ugly.

I saw these in the form of facts but does their existence make me a bad person? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what I behold is not an image that pleases my eye, but I know that what I see is no justification to hate myself. Or at least it should not be.

As a black woman must I have a skinny waist, pretty face, and a booty to stun the masses in order to be worthy of anyone’s time?

Must I paint my face and fill the dark crevices of my soul with eye liner and hard liquor while the centuries old chains attached to my wrists and ankles rattle as I sway my child-rearing hips to beats that beat my mind to death.

Am I nothing more than the amount of men I have allowed to crawl their way into my body and mind? To leave a piece of themselves and steal my peace of mind.

Must I spend my existence worried about the opinion of every man who bothers to glance my way? Must I worry if they see me as a saint or as a women with a hunger for men vaster than the depths of her heart, wider than her legs could ever spread, and as ferocious as the animal inside.

I. Am. So. Much. More.

I am God’s gift to Earth. I am everything that I would love in another person, but am unable to see in myself. I am worthy of my own love and deserve to access it as freely as others do. I am woman. I am black. I am more than worthy.