LARGE

When I was born, the doctor gave me a length and a weight and these numbers said I was healthy. So he sent me into the world. Now I am seventeen with a length and a weight, and these numbers tell me that I am sick. You can’t be a ballerina, silly, your breasts won’t fit into the leotard. Don’t even bother trying it on. Only thin girls could pull that off. She is petite so she is effortlessly desirable. You… might need to go to the gym a few times. But wow, you have such a great personality! There is a choking sigh building up inside my throat; one that gets a little louder with each pound, a little bigger at the sight of every glossy paper girl in my mother’s magazines, a sigh that echoes elastic waistbands and baggy sweatshirts and thighs that brush together while walking. I have let my belt out a notch or two, and my jeans don’t fit the way they used to. I can look at myself with a mind determined to lie and say, “You’re thin.” “You look fine.” But I can’t erase the look on my mother’s face when she realized that I, her only daughter, would never fit into her wedding dress. I can’t slap away my little brother’s fingers as he pinches the blubber of my stomach and laughs, “Yours is bigger than mine.” But these things can’t be said aloud; how dare I complain? There will always be a girl with hips a little thicker and arms a little wider who will glare at me with hate burning in her eyes and spit, “Shut up. I wish I looked like you.” As if that would make me feel better. I have let my belt out a notch or three, and the stretch marks on my thighs are a deep aching purple. I knew I was in trouble the day my weight exceeded my IQ. I had always cherished the size of my mind but never the size of my body; Now my footsteps bring miniature earthquakes, and I am growing tired of this world where I count the pounds like whip lashes, and the inches around my waist are the circles of hell. I wish I was a glossy paper girl or a sketch on notebook paper that someone threw out; a two-dimensional fiction, but skinny. Finally skinny. I danced through youth as light as air, always assuming I could take flight at any time. But sideways glances and the weight of being average have nailed my feet to the ground. I have thrown my old belt away because it left marks on my hips and gotten a new one. The tag says LARGE in bold, offensive letters and I guess that’s what I am