At around the age of 10, I truly began to hate my body. I have never been one of the skinny girls and people would always tell me to watch my weight, but at the beginning of middle school, I actively tried to lose weight. It led to my obsession with the scale and I loved the control I had over my weight loss, how it made me better in the eyes of the world.
The summer of diet Coke
appetite suppressants
and ten-year old girls
hoping to be loved again
compliment my thigh gap
i’ll hold your hair as you puke
Using each other as a how to guide
writing ones for those to come
i hope you don’t see
the parts of me in this poem
as another instruction manual
to use on your self
‘Que flaca estas’
those words were the sun
for a weak flower like me
they told me
being skinny is better
than being healthy
being skinny is better
than being happy
‘Wow you look amazing’
thanks to the girl
who pretended i was invisible
for the last five years
but saw me when my collar bones popped
and i longer had tree trunk thighs
thank you for finally
making me feel worthy
I fell in love
not with movie stars
but with low numbers on a scale
with bone and flat stomachs
with the feeling of being enough
maybe now i’m what you want
