Ask Baba Yaga: How Can I Get Over the Fear That This One Physical Feature Makes Me Look Grotesque?

Transcript after the jump.

Dear Baba Yaga,

While I’ve come to mostly accept the body I was born with and use for loving, working, and playing, I can’t help but feel uneasy about one physical feature. It’s not quite a hunchback, but my shoulders are fleshy and my back has a roundness below my neck. When I catch glimpses of my posture in windows or mirrors, I’m always surprised and disappointed. How can this be me? I stretch and do yoga, but I’m afraid it’s not enough to keep me from growing into a grotesque old woman. What should l do?

BABA YAGA:

) All mirrors tell the wrong story . Your cloak-hem has already brushed the ink-pool that mars all of us; the marring of being not as we thought we were. I sit at my mirror daily & make loud laughter, inking my brows & lips with the mar-muck — then I step : through the glass to glimpse other Sights. You have ) made a loveliness of yr body through the moving of it, & the mirror is a false confidant. Evermore, to be as I am is an honor & a magic.

Previously:: “I Got What I Wanted, So Why Do I Feel Hollow?”

Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. She’s taking questions on behalf of Baba Yaga at [email protected].