Weightlessness

ONE
He always conflated my worth
With my weight
Like somehow if I could just gain
The ability to lose
The score would equate
And then he might find less to hate.

Watching the scale teeter –
The balance hung with my fate.
Was I too little? (No such thing)
Or was I too much? (Which would negate
My right to worth and to take up space).

TWO
He would have dwindled me down to nothing at all.
Plucked every feather
Pulled each hair from my skull
Like if I could just be smaller, maybe
There would be more love
If I could just be skinny
Then maybe the love would be served
On an all-you-can-eat buffet
And I would go back
Plate after plate
Stuffing my gaunt, little girl face
Until I felt stuffed
And the pain was displaced.

I felt it in my GUT.
I felt the emptiness in my belly.
I felt the shame.
The self-hate.
The worthlessness that I too had come to conflate
With the width of my hips
And the pounds that I weighed.

THREE
Dieting was Dangerous.
Dieting was like being shipped off to World War III
Where FAT was the enemy, to be destroyed at all costs.
Because bathroom scales were where the battle was fought,
I should have fled to Canada (they have snacks there, right?).
I should have spat in their face and slipped away in the night
But I stayed and I served, and I climbed through the ranks
And I piled on armor, until my self-esteem tanked.

As a child captive, I would sneak meals and junk food after he went to bed
Wishing I had a different body
Screaming rage in my head
Why didn’t she stop him?!
Why didn’t she step in?!
Was it because she was skinny? Was it because she was stupid?
Or worse, did she understand?

FOUR
Growing up, I never wanted to be a Disney princess.
It felt to unrealistic. Too much pressure.
But see, I always wanted to be an astronaut
Or a mermaid. Or a bird, with their hollow bones.

We had a fat cat, and it was talked to cruelly.
Always a comment on its gross, stupid body
Most guys only get with skinny pussy anyway
They’re not down with chunk on their girls
And how could you blame them, when that was your world?
But where the hell was there space for me?
Just to exist, in my fleshy body?

Worth is the jolly rancher rolling around in my mouth.
I savor it as I contemplate
Its sweet, but unfamiliar taste
And start to pull apart the layers
Thinking back to the days
When I was so obsessed with water and space
Because the dream was so tantalizing
That you could, for a time, escape
And feel only
Weightlessness