Today I am wearing anything but black solely to hide the fact that I am just sticks…

Just sticks set up in such a way that if you even tap my shoulder… you will be impaled without intention

I’m told “You don’t get to complain” about my body all the time

But when talking about body issues there are things to keep in mind

The phrase “Born with a summer body” is a phrase I should be grateful for constantly receiving

But hip bones at the beach aren’t as luxurious as they make it seem and are in fact deceiving

 

“I hope to be as skinny as you”

“What’s your secret?

“You feel just like a skeleton”

Skeleton I may seem but I still have a heart

A brain

All my organs

And… Skin

Skin that wraps my body in paper-thin layers leaving every edge of shoulder, every edge of rib cage, every fucking edge of “Sorry but can you move you’re too bony”.

 

As much as I am praised for my stick thin shape I can’t help but feel confused

During the summer I’m praised for the beautiful flat stomach and naturally contoured face yet during the winter I’m told off during the season of the critics

“You’re cold because you have no meat on your bones”

“Eat some more or you’ll starve”

“Shut up about being cold it’s your fucking fault”

I switch disorder symptoms seasonally

From starving myself, destroying myself inside out just all to win your praise

To binge eating during the winter and shut up the critics and have them see it my way.

 

It’s Christmas dinner, I only want 2 tamales but I reach for 4

If I get less than the norm I am labeled “flaca”

“skinny”

You think I don’t know I’m skinny?

You think I don’t hear the comments about me being skinny?

Did you really fucking think I didn’t hear when you were talking about how I will never get a boyfriend because I’m skinny?

Don’t assume that because I don’t listen to you when you say shit like this to my face that I don’t listen to the comments behind my back

 

Growing up I was told that I was an inspiration

I was stunned when friends would say that they want my body

I mean, who would want a body as bony as this one?

I always wanted curves or a little more body padding and be somebody

A somebody people would see in a bikini on the cover of a magazine and say

“Wow, she’s beautiful” “curvy” “a true inspiration”

It’s 2018, buts are the new boobs

But I still have neither