Letting In the Goddess

Eden Borden, Third Place

What I didn’t know was that it was

never a sin to love myself.

Standing bare and vulnerable in front of my mirror, a woman I’d never known stared back at me. The silhouette of a being much more powerful than me was creeping out of the shadows. I had long lived in the presence of a goddess, but who possessed no shrine, no patron, and no fanfare. I’d long ignored her inhabitance, waiting for someone to come and awake her from the dust and rattle her bones back into existence. I forsook her.

In first grade, I stood in line at the end of recess, waiting for our teacher to come receive us. A voice arose out from the fourfoot crowd. “Eden Borden is fat!” I whipped my head around and saw a boy, lifted up by his friends, laughing down at me. My first public humiliation.

Two years later, after a similar incident, I found myself at my teacher’s desk near tears. “Mrs. Barnes, I hate it. I hate my body.” The old woman who was my eccentric third grade teacher pulled me into a hug then wrapped her shawl around me as we took a lap around the classroom. I leaned into her plump side.

After much contemplation, Mrs. Barnes came out with a most peculiar response. “If we went on a field trip across the ocean and our boat sank, you would float.” Puzzled, I met her eyes. “If we took a tour of the Sahara Desert and got lost, everyone else would die off faster. You’d probably survive. Me too, of course.” She let out a merry laugh and patted her tummy. Morbid as it was, I took comfort in her words. I could sleep well knowing that at the very least, I’d outlive my tormentors.

When you’re bigger, no one wants to tell you. It’s like it’s a secret that they don’t think you’re aware of. As though you haven’t endured insults, being spat on, or punched in the face. At fourteen, my friends and I held a Halloween party. I’d dressed up as the BBC Sherlock Holmes, despite the fact that blazers were no match for my broad shoulders. All of us being actors, the night was filled with roleplay, games, and pranks. One of them being that one of my girlfriends and I pretended to be possessed. While we were doing this, the boy I had a crush on picked up my suit

coat that I’d draped over the couch and threw it over his shoulders. I cringed, but didn’t stop my acting. He barely weighed a buck two and it swallowed him. Loudly, he proclaimed to one of the guys, “Dallin, this is huge. Is it yours?”

“No. Let me try it on.” he handed it off to him and Dallin threw it around himself. “Must be my older brother’s. Fatty.”

The two of them went on like that right in front of me. I held in every tear. It’s just boys teasing each other. They don’t mean any of it. If they knew it was you, they wouldn’t say that. But...maybe they would. Is that what they think of me? When it came time to go home, and all games had ended, I asked everyone if they had seen my blazer. The two boys looked at one another, cheeks flushing red at the realization of what they’d done, and handed it over, unable to look me in the eyes.

It seemed that people only ever saw me as sum of body parts in high school. Despite my directors promising me parts, I was never cast in anything besides ensemble, and the costumes never fit right. I was never asked to a school dance, save by a couple very platonic friends out of sympathy. And that was a shame; I loved dancing. Even eating in front of people was hard. I loved myself from head to toe and was so in love with who I was, but I wanted other people to love me too. Out of that shame, I never talked about my weight, I did my best to accommodate so others were comfortable, and I was never too loud.

After a long day, I came home and cried. I loved who I was, but I hated what I looked like. Out of all my friends, I had always been the most confident, and yet I held onto my insecurities like dirty little secrets. I stripped off my clothes, ready to get into my pajamas. As I walked across the bedroom, I turned to my mirror.

And there she was. A goddess that I had tucked away in shame.

But now, I couldn’t help but worship her. Every curve, every roll, every dimple was a reminder that she lived. The rigid cracks in her granite thighs and the many marks along the soft gold plating of her back decorated this temple. Goddess of my home, forgive me for not seeing your magnificence sooner.

Each feature was its own masterpiece. Her skin like silk, I trailed my fingers lightly over her statue. The gorgeous craftsmanship of her calves that must have been carved from alabaster stone. A marble rear that turned every seat into a throne. A belly soft and plush as down pillows. And if prudishness might forgive my admiration, I ran my hands over the curved pair of beautiful, cushiony breasts that glistened slightly in morning light and hung like jewels upon an armored chest. These figures led up to two strong shoulders made of polished bronze. The column that held up her head was not unlike the ones that held up the Parthenon. All of her soft, and yet all of her figure made of precious stone.

Her crowning glory was the freckle upon her upper right lip. She had kissed the sun, taking him in her arms as her lover. He had laid her in a bed of grass, bathing her in warmth,

and stroked his fingers up her body turning her pale frame to gold. Despite his radiant heat as he explored her, she shivered, knowing that the heavens were infatuated with her. Any lover after him would have to admire it and know that she’d been loved by him first.

Below her emerald globes, the moon left her a mark of violet crescents. The goddess often banished sleep from her place and succumbed to the gentle caress of moonlight. She quickly became her inamorata, whispering sweet, intoxicating ideas into her mind at all hours. Together, they created art, studied philosophy, and expounded literature. Spoiled in the moon’s diamond frame, the goddess thrived.

How could I not have known? So blinded by the howls and clawing of hounds, I had hidden her away. It was by my own doing that this happened to her, and I was no better than them. It’s a funny thing, shame. It piles up in the chambers of your mind like dirty laundry. It sits on a chair, in a corner, or maybe even in a basket. And it’s just there. Living with you. And when you want to go out and have fun you can’t bring yourself to because there is just. So. Much. Laundry.

But today was laundry day. So I took out those piles and banished them from my space. I was so eager to exorcise it from me. I shoved it out the windows, threw it out the door, tossed every crumb of it into the fire, and bleached the carpets until at last I stood in a place I could call home. A purified space fit for my goddess.

She did not come immediately, but when I heard her knock, I thrust open the door and pulled her inside. She came in further, taking stock of the walls, and drapes, and furniture. There was an air to her going that filled everything up with light, and I find that the longer she has stayed, the brighter she glows.

She has shown me the power of my womanhood. From head to toe, I had been given the gift to learn, to feed, to love, to nourish, and to give life. She taught me the beauty of a woman’s blood, and comforted me through its pain. In its shedding, I was proving that I was here, and I was breathing, and I was alive. And one day the death of old blood would bring about new life. These natural forces crowned me in confidence.

I am the goddess that lives in these halls. I am the force to be reckoned with. And as I stared at my own reflection that day, I smiled-noticing for the first time that I had dimples-because I had found her at last. And she was free. And she could not be caged again.