I’ve grown up with fat shaming surrounding me;
“he looks like he’s eaten three of his classmates”
“she was a little porker”
“oh god she’s huge, how disgusting”
I’ve grown up with comments aimed at me;
“you look seven months pregnant”
“look at that little belly”
“you really should start exercising”
I’ve grown up with body shaming;
“do you have some bio-oil to put on your stretchmarks?”
“she’s so skinny it’s sickening”
“you look like you have two sets of boobs”
how long do I have to listen,
until I get to escape the stifling self-hate
the ingrained misogyny
the societal expectations that the people around me,
have succumbed to
how can I watch,
my sister be destroyed by this thinking,
always poking and prodding at her size 10 figure,
saying she has a belly and she needs to get rid of it
when she’s thinner than I am and perfectly healthy
how can I watch,
my brother thinking he needs to go to the gym,
after seeing my mother and hearing her comments
every visit home the first thing she comments on,
is his weight
he was never overweight, to begin with
how can I watch,
people say things about people they don’t know
they’ll never know
the people I love the most, making judgements
on weight
on appearance
superficial statements about meat suits that shouldn’t even be functioning in the first place
don’t they realise,
life’s too short for this
we are living organisms,
we are a bundle of flesh and water and blood
organs, atoms,
a beating heart
and an ever expanding brain
we are mammals held onto a spinning
chunk of rock
floating through space at unimaginable speeds
constantly s p i n n i n g
held to the ground by unseen forces
and they want to comment on someone’s weight?
as if weight matters,
as if what we look like matters
as if anything but the way we treat others
the way we treat our planet
the way we treat ourselves
matters
weight is just matter
we are just matter
our planet is just matter
think about what matters,
the next time you want to make a comment
about someone
about yourself
about those you loveI’ve grown up around body shaming
I’ve grown up around body shaming
self hate
reflecting onto others
I will not contribute to it.
