My blood paints a new sunrise. My body is a flowing river, changing waters everyday. My body, natural, beautiful, in the middle of a concrete jungle. The cars, the smog, the urban isolation, my body deals with all of that, marches on, does everything I ask of it. It’s real and it’s its own brand of perfect. Not a perfect that is famous, my own individual type of perfect, a secret that I am told I am supposed to hide for no good reason. A type of perfection that should be honored, a type of beauty that comes from the Chingonas of my past, their beautiful bodies that have survived the oppressions, of their times and ours.
Why not love our bodies? My mother’s body made it through the wars of her youth, has born three children, raised them. And yet she worries about her lonjas way too much, she thinks she is ugly. But her secret beauty must be revealed to her. She has to know.