FUNHOUSE
I want to hear the wind flying through my bones,
through the rhombus-shaped crevices of the five
o'clock shadows beneath my arms and the sliver
of sunlight and pavement slipping through my legs like
silky wine at dusk. I do not want to sag and crinkle like
a week-old balloon, do not want pigeons cooing at me, pecking
at my elastic cheeks. It is in good fun to poke and prod at me,
but when I am alone and I feel cold despite the hot spotlight
burning through my skin like searing oil, is it a carnival? When I
look at the mirror and notice that it is tall and skinny like a latte
from a place I avoid, is it a carnival? It is when your eyes are made from the
same glass as funhouses.
THE IN-BETWEEN GIRL
this is a fat-shaming poem.
this is a skinny-shaming poem.
this is a poem shaming all of the girls
who have been drafted into the war of
plus and petite. through spoken words
with lettered explosions rolling off their tongues
like atomic bombs of insults and self-solicitude.
gunshots firing back and forth,
bullets shrieking through the air
fat fat fat obesity
anorexia skinny skinny skinny
blaming it on anyone but themselves.
blaming it on catcalling boys
and stuck up sized zeroes
and insecure double d's.
these are for the girls who have
thigh gaps and fat rolls, voluptuous breasts
and envious waists. we are the girls
listening to both sides, hearing
them pick apart their bodies leaving them
with the aftermath of a blowout sale at victoria's secret.
their words are like saws
push pull push pull
hacking away at our self esteems
we are society's favorite prisoner,
forced to pick up the wreckage from last night's battle.
we fall on the line of both sides of pretty
and sofuckingugly, we are the thick berlin wall
the internet has avoided. this is for switzerland.
they don't know my weight balances on the scale
of fat and skinny and that i live on a tight
schedule of inconsistency, do not realize that
the way i view my body
my refuge,
my battleground,
is a day-to-day mystery
where tuesday is okay
but wednesday is filled with diet plans
and thursday is binge-eating with a
mirror by my side. some days my belly
protrudes like her hipbones or her bingo wings,
and other days they're thin like the self-esteem
level in a middle school gym class.
there are days when i'm too much of a
fatass to make food, so i sit there
and starve myself. i am the unsophisticated
girl who eats white rice with my gluttonous fingers
when a spoon is clearly in sight.
yes, i love inhaling pints of ben & jerry's,
and yes, i eat broccoli occasionally.
i am the girl who swims in larges
and shrinks in smalls
and cannot find a medium, and if i can,
i'm too mainstream, too basic.
in a world where individuality is celebrated
and bantered and debated, there's no way the
in-between girl can compare.
RUN, CHICKEN, RUN
when they say,
"run, chicken, run"
i know they're talking about you.
you are the meaty KFC thighs,
the inner flesh of the original recipe,
dipped in a light splattering of ketchup
once a month; and
some people like that.
not me. i like drumsticks.
you are peppered with
elongated polka dots and
faded coral spots
that shake the very foundation
of the way my reflection
appears in the light of my eyes.
you have the everlasting disease
of the chicken pox,
never leaving
just dwindling
with every passing day.
the way you expand
and contract, leave an
exclusive tunnel of light
through your towers when the
sirens of hunger resonate
through the neighborhood.
when you close it off,
block it from view, it ruffles
my feathers to the frustrating
point where i almost say,
"pluck you" and throw you the bird.
when they say "run, chicken, run"
i am filled to the brim with shame and
self-consciousness. but i know there's
no way i could do it without you.
A SPECKLED SACK
oh, thighs
you sack of potatoes
sometimes you mash
and feel all wiggly
and jiggly
with your silvery rice
speckled lines
and other times
i can see through you
could it be
is it the
infamous
thigh gap?
oh, thighs
i don't know how
i'd get around
without my
potatoes