A Woman's Burden

Dear former best friend,

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about you

Is how close we were

And how much time we spent together

Just how long it took for the fog to clear up.

There was a third party, remember?

The one we ignored, terrorized,

Bullied to silence-

Reality.

Without her in the picture, nothing could stop us

You saw me in my most vulnerable state

You knew my deepest, darkest secret-

I hated myself.

I repaint our first encounter over the clutter of my memories

Where I picked you, of all the rest,

from the skinny denim piles of 24s, 25s, 26s, 27s-

The rest of the sizes were irrelevant.

When I tried you on and you were the perfect fit,

You became the first

To bring me light in a place of darkness,

Satisfaction in a place of criticism

The one to help me slowly like myself,

One digit lower at a time.

You reinforced my religion of thinspiration

The number machine on my bathroom floor my Bible

And my reflection the beacon of my devotion

But the confidence and happiness you brought me was fleeting.

You became possessive,

Making it clear that if I wanted you

I could have you only

I will never forget

The overwhelming loneliness

That imprisoned me in our friendship.

You became toxic,

Making me believe

I will never be happy

Without the envy of other people

I will never erase from the shattered pieces of my mind

The lethal greed

That brought me sixty-two pounds closer to biting the dust.

You weren’t just with me in my most vulnerable state

You created this vulnerability;

You didn’t just know my deepest and darkest secret

You were the secret to begin with.

But not anymore.

Dear my once

very beloved skinny jeans,

I have grown out of you

Into a pair that embraces the figure I am now,

Into a pair that teaches me

A true sense of beauty.

I have learned

Somewhere throughout all this that

Perfection is ugly

Somewhere in the things humans make

I want to see scars, failure, disorder

Battle scars from which they emerge

Braver, stronger, bolder.

I have left the Church of #Thinspo

But have met my real God,

I have quit the relentless chase for the impossible

But have found peace within stability.

To your utter dismay, I don’t fit into you anymore

But I don’t wish to

Ever again.

I am no longer yours.

And I pray you will no longer

Disguise yourself as a substitute

for the worth and existence of my brothers and sisters.

Finally, reality breathes- it’s been waiting for me all along.