5 Things on 10 Pounds

One. I go to the doctor's office.

He looks at me with an intense face,

Grim

Like I have an illness more serious than cancer.

My heart starts pounding, I'm afraid

I ask

"What is it doc?"

You're ten pounds overwheight. 

That's obese.

Ten pounds. That's all it takes. 

For a girl to be seen as obscene,

As a blot on this Earth that should be removed

Because she is imperfect.

I leave that office and never come back.

Two. Ten pounds.

What is that in the scheme of things?

A small child.

A cat.

A dog.

A bag of flour.

A ten pound weight.

What does it take to lose ten pounds?

Cut off one breast and there's 5.

Cut off the other and there's the rest.

An arm.

A leg.

What more can you take?

Put it back on my body and you have the right to call me 

Fat.

Three. Obese is just a nice way of saying that.

Fat.

It is not less of an insult because it's a scientific term.

It may not be a knife but it stabs me

In each and every one of those ten pounds.

And it hurts

Because they bleed

Just like every other part on my body.

My body.

Not yours. 

And you don't have the right to call it

Something it is not.

Four. My cholesterol is good,

My blood pressure even,

And yet I am obese because my body

Is heavier than that of girls my height and age.

By ten pounds!

My bones are thick with the blood of my ancestors,

My mother. My father.

My hips are wide to bear a child.

My breasts are lage because 

They are.

Five. If that is all it takes

Ten pounds

To say that I am obese?

I will take them all

And call me fat.

Because I love each

And every

Ounce.