I Have a Body

This is a poem about loving yourself.

I was taught to hate my body when I was five years old

And a little girl with pigtails in her hair called me 'fat'

Because my face was too round to fit 

Into her angled and sharp worldview

I went to my mom that day and cried

I think it may have been some sort of 

Self-fulfilling prophecy because 

While my peers began to shed 

The baby chub they had once carried

Mine continued to marinate on my frame

Growing and feeding off of insults and exaggerations

School yard hatred became it's medicine

And I became fat

And I won't sit and sugar coat my condition

The obesity rate in America is high

And sometimes I feel like just another statistic

Years of yo-yo dieting and counting calories

Has left me defeated

And my thighs have grown larger

With every dessert I have cheated

I have battled my flesh with every ounce of my being

Wishing, praying, hoping that one day I would shrink

I have been ashamed of the way my thighs rub raw

My collar bones buried and my jaw too soft

But what does this shame do but lay

Dormant in my chest?

Turning my stomach any time 

I pass something reflective

I am tired of hearing the phrases

"Big boned" and "more to love"

Attempts at excusing the 

Offensive fat cells that reside under my skin

Because why should I excuse it?

Can I not love myself organically, radically

Become friends with these pounds?

Stop pining after the Kardashian butt

And size double D breasts hoping

That one day I could be worthy of acceptance

And I am tired of hating this fat, round body I posses