1
00:00:05,775 --> 00:00:07,584
To the man in the car who shouted

2
00:00:07,584 --> 00:00:13,370
"<i>I like a big girl in bed, baby. More room to paint on.</i>"

3
00:00:13,704 --> 00:00:14,585
I said nothing.

4
00:00:15,219 --> 00:00:17,203
I pretended you meant "paint".

5
00:00:17,577 --> 00:00:19,611
I walked away
complemented.

6
00:00:20,186 --> 00:00:24,374
In class, I learn about the tradition 
of the pastoral landscape.

7
00:00:24,550 --> 00:00:26,614
How it tames the wild out.

8
00:00:26,853 --> 00:00:29,205
That nature is a frenzied horse

9
00:00:29,408 --> 00:00:32,527
most useful after it is broken.

10
00:00:33,802 --> 00:00:37,810
Later, I remember how your thin limbs
dangled out of the car.

11
00:00:37,819 --> 00:00:42,418
I remember your mouth,
not your own, you said

12
00:00:42,418 --> 00:00:46,911
"<i>Darling, your body is like... a landscape.</i>

13
00:00:47,088 --> 00:00:48,703
<i>The rolling hill of you.</i>

14
00:00:48,855 --> 00:00:53,534
<i>The orchard I would set on fire 
to match the colour of your mouth."</i>

15
00:00:53,729 --> 00:00:57,645
And for a moment I think you meant it.

16
00:00:57,807 --> 00:01:01,039
Desirability is a clever thief.

17
00:01:01,188 --> 00:01:03,692
It steals you away from your body.

18
00:01:03,822 --> 00:01:05,848
Casts subject as object,

19
00:01:05,976 --> 00:01:08,339
if it means I am wanted.

20
00:01:08,441 --> 00:01:12,277
I know bodies like mine can only 
be talked about in metaphor.

21
00:01:12,514 --> 00:01:16,871
My stomach could be the curve of a sand dune;

22
00:01:17,041 --> 00:01:19,714
my calves a flexing ocean;

23
00:01:20,032 --> 00:01:23,375
you could hook up with a mountain of a body;

24
00:01:23,638 --> 00:01:27,859
you could describe it later 
as legs you climbed aaaaall the way up.

25
00:01:28,026 --> 00:01:29,691
But a fat body,

26
00:01:29,733 --> 00:01:31,634
a dirty sidewalk,

27
00:01:31,884 --> 00:01:35,155
is too big to be worthy of a human form.

28
00:01:35,362 --> 00:01:36,746
So when I talk about myself

29
00:01:36,980 --> 00:01:38,623
I describe a landscape,

30
00:01:38,896 --> 00:01:40,266
a skyline,

31
00:01:40,384 --> 00:01:42,138
a galaxy of a woman,

32
00:01:42,343 --> 00:01:44,992
a palatable vastness.

33
00:01:45,135 --> 00:01:51,311
I ask myself if I could be the sun 
streaking someone else's sky awake?

34
00:01:51,552 --> 00:01:53,809
Desirability means my favourite compliment

35
00:01:54,008 --> 00:01:55,935
came when a man told me that my mouth

36
00:01:56,075 --> 00:02:02,456
reminded him of a jar of fireflies
on a hot southern night.

37
00:02:02,627 --> 00:02:04,738
I grew up in Portland.

38
00:02:04,738 --> 00:02:05,748
[ <i>audience laughs and cheers</i>]

39
00:02:05,748 --> 00:02:08,781
I have no idea what a jar of fireflies feels like.

40
00:02:10,996 --> 00:02:15,846
But I bet you it's beautiful like the paintings.

41
00:02:16,356 --> 00:02:20,241
Something you can hang up 
and show off to strangers,

42
00:02:20,408 --> 00:02:24,925
say this piece shows that nature is a frenzied swarm,

43
00:02:25,094 --> 00:02:29,380
but god damn, how pretty 
the jar tames it.

44
00:02:29,854 --> 00:02:36,405
There are days the body positivity movement
does not prepare you for.

45
00:02:36,405 --> 00:02:39,612
Like the day you have to take your body back

46
00:02:39,612 --> 00:02:43,955
from the only way people allow themselves 
to find it beautiful.

47
00:02:43,955 --> 00:02:46,142
To say that my mouth?

48
00:02:46,142 --> 00:02:47,912
Does not firefly.

49
00:02:47,912 --> 00:02:49,079
My body?

50
00:02:49,079 --> 00:02:50,758
Is not a landscape.

51
00:02:50,758 --> 00:02:54,341
I. Am not. A fucking orchard.

52
00:02:54,341 --> 00:02:57,605
Or a crate of bruised fruit
on the road you stop at,

53
00:02:57,605 --> 00:03:02,991
on the way to some beautiful hillside 
with curves in aaaall the right places.

54
00:03:02,991 --> 00:03:05,648
My body is goooood.

55
00:03:05,648 --> 00:03:07,983
Like. A body.

56
00:03:07,983 --> 00:03:09,112
I take up

57
00:03:09,112 --> 00:03:09,607
this

58
00:03:09,607 --> 00:03:10,175
much.

59
00:03:10,175 --> 00:03:10,793
space.

60
00:03:11,073 --> 00:03:14,922
I'm not some sprawling. thing. in the distance.

61
00:03:15,051 --> 00:03:17,034
I am right here!

62
00:03:17,034 --> 00:03:17,724
I.

63
00:03:17,774 --> 00:03:18,594
Am right.

64
00:03:18,684 --> 00:03:19,244
Here.

65
00:03:19,909 --> 00:03:21,179
[<i>audience cheers</i>]