0:00:05.775,0:00:07.584
To the man in the car who shouted

0:00:07.584,0:00:13.370
"<i>I like a big girl in bed, baby. More room to paint on.</i>"

0:00:13.704,0:00:14.585
I said nothing.

0:00:15.219,0:00:17.203
I pretended you meant "paint".

0:00:17.577,0:00:19.611
I walked away[br]complemented.

0:00:20.186,0:00:24.374
In class, I learn about the tradition [br]of the pastoral landscape.

0:00:24.550,0:00:26.614
How it tames the wild out.

0:00:26.853,0:00:29.205
That nature is a frenzied horse

0:00:29.408,0:00:32.527
most useful after it is broken.

0:00:33.802,0:00:37.810
Later, I remember how your thin limbs[br]dangled out of the car.

0:00:37.819,0:00:42.418
I remember your mouth,[br]not your own, you said

0:00:42.418,0:00:46.911
"<i>Darling, your body is like... a landscape.</i>

0:00:47.088,0:00:48.703
<i>The rolling hill of you.</i>

0:00:48.855,0:00:53.534
<i>The orchard I would set on fire [br]to match the colour of your mouth."</i>

0:00:53.729,0:00:57.645
And for a moment I think you meant it.

0:00:57.807,0:01:01.039
Desirability is a clever thief.

0:01:01.188,0:01:03.692
It steals you away from your body.

0:01:03.822,0:01:05.848
Casts subject as object,

0:01:05.976,0:01:08.339
if it means I am wanted.

0:01:08.441,0:01:12.277
I know bodies like mine can only [br]be talked about in metaphor.

0:01:12.514,0:01:16.871
My stomach could be the curve of a sand dune;

0:01:17.041,0:01:19.714
my calves a flexing ocean;

0:01:20.032,0:01:23.375
you could hook up with a mountain of a body;

0:01:23.638,0:01:27.859
you could describe it later [br]as legs you climbed aaaaall the way up.

0:01:28.026,0:01:29.691
But a fat body,

0:01:29.733,0:01:31.634
a dirty sidewalk,

0:01:31.884,0:01:35.155
is too big to be worthy of a human form.

0:01:35.362,0:01:36.746
So when I talk about myself

0:01:36.980,0:01:38.623
I describe a landscape,

0:01:38.896,0:01:40.266
a skyline,

0:01:40.384,0:01:42.138
a galaxy of a woman,

0:01:42.343,0:01:44.992
a palatable vastness.

0:01:45.135,0:01:51.311
I ask myself if I could be the sun [br]streaking someone else's sky awake?

0:01:51.552,0:01:53.809
Desirability means my favourite compliment

0:01:54.008,0:01:55.935
came when a man told me that my mouth

0:01:56.075,0:02:02.456
reminded him of a jar of fireflies[br]on a hot southern night.

0:02:02.627,0:02:04.738
I grew up in Portland.

0:02:04.738,0:02:05.748
[ <i>audience laughs and cheers</i>]

0:02:05.748,0:02:08.781
I have no idea what a jar of fireflies feels like.

0:02:10.996,0:02:15.846
But I bet you it's beautiful like the paintings.

0:02:16.356,0:02:20.241
Something you can hang up [br]and show off to strangers,

0:02:20.408,0:02:24.925
say this piece shows that nature is a frenzied swarm,

0:02:25.094,0:02:29.380
but god damn, how pretty [br]the jar tames it.

0:02:29.854,0:02:36.405
There are days the body positivity movement[br]does not prepare you for.

0:02:36.405,0:02:39.612
Like the day you have to take your body back

0:02:39.612,0:02:43.955
from the only way people allow themselves [br]to find it beautiful.

0:02:43.955,0:02:46.142
To say that my mouth?

0:02:46.142,0:02:47.912
Does not firefly.

0:02:47.912,0:02:49.079
My body?

0:02:49.079,0:02:50.758
Is not a landscape.

0:02:50.758,0:02:54.341
I. Am not. A fucking orchard.

0:02:54.341,0:02:57.605
Or a crate of bruised fruit[br]on the road you stop at,

0:02:57.605,0:03:02.991
on the way to some beautiful hillside [br]with curves in aaaall the right places.

0:03:02.991,0:03:05.648
My body is goooood.

0:03:05.648,0:03:07.983
Like. A body.

0:03:07.983,0:03:09.112
I take up

0:03:09.112,0:03:09.607
this

0:03:09.607,0:03:10.175
much.

0:03:10.175,0:03:10.793
space.

0:03:11.073,0:03:14.922
I'm not some sprawling. thing. in the distance.

0:03:15.051,0:03:17.034
I am right here!

0:03:17.034,0:03:17.724
I.

0:03:17.774,0:03:18.594
Am right.

0:03:18.684,0:03:19.244
Here.

0:03:19.909,0:03:21.179
[<i>audience cheers</i>]