Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
when I was a kid, I learned very early
how to depend on myself. pull my secrets close,
like imaginary friends who could keep me warm.
I learned very early that it wasn’t normal.
I knew that I was missing out on something
every time the school bell rang for recess
and I was the last one in the classroom.
every time I was left behind and forgotten.
like that day the student council went to laser tag
and I got locked in the arena for almost an hour
and no one noticed I was missing the entire time
I was screaming. they ate lunch without me
and didn’t even notice that my seat was empty.
my eating disorder was born
when I first experienced death and loneliness.
when I first learned that “fat” was a bad word.
I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it tasted like
going for a third helping of ice cream at my grandmother’s
wake when I was only eight and hearing people say,
“that will go straight to your waist.”
I didn’t know it then, but those were the first words
my eating disorder ever learned how to repeat,
which was fine. I’d learned those words long before that
and I knew how to separate lies from fact.
but, as everything does, my eating disorder grew up.
and it learned how to walk in my shoes how to
crawl right through me like a spider in the gutter
and I’ve been running for my life ever since.
ever since we learned that fat is a bad word.
when I was a kid, I preached about sticks and stones
and how they couldn’t break my brittle bones.
when I was a kid… I lied a lot.
if you took a full body x-ray of me now,
you could see the remodeling
from years of learning pottery
and how to score and slip all my bones back together.
you could see where all the jokes you carved
in my funny bone didn’t make me laugh.
they made me hurt.
and, what’s worse, you could see the exact fracture
that taught me fat is a bad word.
you can see the letters F, A, and T scrawled
in the cracks of every verbal attack ever launched at me.
I hear that word on cooking shows
and cringe, see it on warning labels and take heed,
KEEP OUT OF MY BODY. I DON’T NEED MORE.
fat is the bad word the doctor’s hear
when I tell them, “I’m feeling sick.”
“Lose some weight,” they say, “that should do the trick.”
“I can’t sleep, I have no energy—”
“Lose a couple pounds,” they say.
as if I had the energy in the first place.
fat is the bad word I threw up on the side of the road,
the bad word on my mirror right next to whore.
fat is the only bad word safe for me to say in church.
when I was a kid, fat and skinny didn’t mean much to me.
it wasn’t until I felt lost and alone inside my own house,
unknown like a mouse scouring the pantry at night
praying no one would turn on the light
and find me with one hand in the cookie jar
and the other down my throat.
when I was a kid, fat was just a word.
it had no power, no morals, but now… it’s immortal.
it lives and writhes in me even while I’m suffocating.
I look in my mirror at every extra inch of me
I wish I could cut off with scissors and wonder
how such a heavy word meant to make me feel unworthy
of the space I’m hurting in could make me feel so
small and insignificant.
if fat is a bad word, what worse could I say?
does it make me a bad person for not fitting
into the outfit I used to wear every day?
if fat is a bad word, how could it not
be censored like every other curse word?
is fat really a bad word…
or was I cursed to believe that
the first time it was used to attack me?
ever since I was a kid,
fat has always been a bad word.
but words don’t know how to be bad.
it’s the people who spit them at others,
who use them to cover up their own insecurities.
to humiliate mothers who “let themselves go”
after giving birth, like their miraculous bodies
aren’t worth the space they’ve stretched into.
to belittle innocent children who just want to dance
in their sparkling tutus like all the pretty ballerinas do
without being weighed down by your
big fat expectations for their bodies.
but, if fat is a bad word,
maybe the problem isn’t our bodies.
maybe the problem is you.
FAT IS A BAD WORD was the piece that inspired my new poetry collection, The Art of Starving, available now on Amazon.
Check it out here.
Comments