Sydney DeVoe

“I remember one day realizing how important my body was to our family. Not my intellect, not my ambitions of a writing career. Not the person shaped by thirty-five years. Just my body. I stood naked in front of the mirror after taking off my sweater, which was covered in the pureed peas Sam had spit up. My breasts wilted like the plant in our kitchen that I could never remember to water. My stomach spilled over the indent from my underwear like the foam on the edge of my lukewarm latte. My thighs were marshmallows punctured with a roasting stick. I was mush. But the only thing that mattered was that I could physically keep us all going. My body was our motor. I forgave everything about the unrecognizable woman in the mirror. It never occurred to me then that my body would not be useful like that ever again: necessary, dependable, cherished.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Push