Something About Having It
It’s nice to meet you guilt and shame.
Slurp.
Sip.
Mmm.
Warm.
I sprinkled pure chocolate powder onto its smooth texture.
Smooth, creamy, steamy.
Now with chocolate freckles.
Normally, I have a ton of shame when I have you.
Not today, SATAN.
Not.
Today.
Today, you inspired me.
Today, I dared not taint your experience with shame and guilt.
Today, I enjoyed you.
I’m enjoying you even now that I sit and I’m done eating you.
Fuck!
You soothed me.
Something about having you!
I made it this far without shame getting in the way.
The shame still finds a way to lurk.
Finding anything possible to latch on to.
Unrelenting.
Saying “Do you see the inspiration now, maybe you shouldn’t have gone on social media to post about this, maybe you should have waited a few more minutes to post something more poetic. You see you always jump the gun too fast. See you always have to blow things up! See you always fuck things up….. See! See! See!”
That’s my shame voice.
Hello! It’s nice to meet you.
Do you have anything else to say?
“Yes! You’re going to regret eating that later, you’re going to regret it. You’re going to get bloated! You’re going to get fat. You’re going to get constipated! You’re going to get a yeast infection!”
Thank you, shame voice.
I hear you and it almost sounds like you care about me. You sound like my mother who always comments on my eating habits, highly critical, but deep down loves and cares that I will not lose my “shape.” #dominicanproblems
It’s love.
It’s love masked with a lot of fear.
I see you shame voice.
I see you guilt.
You two seem to be cousins, huh!
Guilt by definition is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.
Shame is the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.
We often use these terms interchangeably, but I want to identify each of you as best as I could and give you your right name.
I’ll try at least.
Let me appropriately name you with my situation here.
I feel guilty for the crime of eating dairy when it was against a rule I created for myself a while back for my health. I created this guilt in order to help reinforce my dietary restrictions that were necessary at the time.
You seem to be effective, somewhat.
But not really.
You’re not effective.
Now for shame.
I feel shame for having indulged in the very thing I desired because I broke a rule within myself; because of my guilt. Therefore, I feel shame for my desire, for my appetite, for my cravings. And deem them as untrustworthy, bad, and even wrong.
Watch out world, you will for sure crumble as a result of this. At least that’s how the lens of shame will have you view it.
*deep breath*
I hear you.
I see you.
You also live in my body, right along with my desires.
I do not reject you.
You can also eat at this table, the same table that I eat my delicious Arroz con Leche on, and you can speak your claims as much as you wish.
I’ve taken your sting away.
You are not effective.
I see the truth of you.
You burden and you make situations less pleasurable than they need to be.
You punish.
As a matter of fact, I just received a thought. You can actually just sit and stand-by in the cocinita, as I serve myself some Habichuela con Dulce from the big pot over the wooden stove.
You can stay there and hang back on the Jasmine flower tree or the Orange tree.
You can even sit on the floor.
Watch me as I indulge and enjoy every last bit of that habichuela con dulce.
I know that what’s more effective than shame and guilt is my body’s natural response to the thing.
Right now, my body’s response to this arroz con leche is soothing.
It’s actually just what my body needed despite it breaking the rule.
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