My body is asking for me to be in it, to know it, to feel it. To stop ignoring it in favor of my mind.
My body is asking for appreciation. For everything I can do. For the distance I’ve walked this week and the 12-pound weights I’ve lifted. For sitting upright during a meeting, for lying down during a meditation. For carrying me around to meet friends for hangs in the park and buy early spring carrots at the farmer’s market.
My body is asking to be seen. Not by the male gaze, or most men gazing. Not in comparison to another woman, but to be witnessed and understood for its glorious aliveness. For the colors that adorn and the patterns that decorate.
My body is asking for attention. Not a desperate voyeurism, not narcissism or self-absorption. Not the me, me, me, of it all. But to be known as a vessel for a person deserving of love, for a person who gives love.
My body is asking to be worked, to be moved, to move, to dance.
My body wants to do hip rolls, that smooth rocking, the feeling of being in a moment where everything feels just right, when the noise of the mind is replaced with an infectious beat.
My body wants silk and velvet and velour and fleece and for everything to be cozy. Soft materials against soft skin slick with lavender oil.
My body wants sex, but doesn’t know how to want sex anymore. Doesn’t know what this will look like. My body wants to be touched. Not like that, like this. Not like that, like this. My body wants adventure and invitations and to try things out, even things I didn’t like before. My body wants to be wanted. Not by everyone. By you. By me.
My body wants to explore new terrains. To open. Without limits.
My body is cold and hot and hot and cold and hot, hot, hot. My body wants the fan on. My body wants a heavy blanket. My body wants no blanket at all. Wait, bring that blanket over here, the cotton one.
My body wants rest, relaxation, to spend a day on the couch with a book.
My body wants ecstasy. I don’t know how to tell you what that means. But I think I’ll know it when I feel it.
My body wants to feel things, instead of residual numbness from surgeries. Even the electric shock of nerves reconnecting is welcome.
My body wants laughter, an unabashed laughter, a doubled-over laughter that you get in trouble for, that adults give dirty looks about. In India, I attended a yoga class in a park that ended with laughter. I thought it wouldn’t work, that we couldn’t laugh on command. What started as a fake chuckle, a forced tee-hee, became something else entirely. A community release. A community embodying joy.
My body doesn’t just ask, doesn’t just want. My body demands. Insists. Commands. Procures. Delivers. Saturates. Revels. Devours. Swallows. Celebrates. Feasts. This is only partly true. How will I make it undeniable?
My body is air, in the process of imagining a new desire, one that includes a new version of me.
My body is fire, passion burning with creativity, words tumbling onto the pages of me.
My body is earth, solid, reliable, here. Changed, but here. Gravity.
My body is water, fluid, morphing, flowing into and toward possibility.
My body is ether, mystery, a place for discovery. 🌿
Kelly Kelbel
CEO and writer. Diagnosed in 2022 at 45. Inflammatory Breast Cancer, Stage III, ER+, PR+, BRCA2.
Kelly writes personal essays and fiction. She co-owns a synthesizer company, Make Noise, and co-leads the Experimental Meditation Club, offering guided meditations with sonic vibrations. Her pending book explores the fallout of amputation surgeries after a lifetime of generational lessons in beauty as a primary survival skill.
“Undeniable” is published in Wildfire Journal’s 2026 “Body” issue. Order the full issue in our shop. Available as a digital download and in the subscribers’ library as well.