TalichaJ.

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4/30

4/30

how best to say body without actually saying body?
should I say I feel more elephant in a birds nest, 
more empire state building in the tool shed,
more ocean in a shot glass?

how dramatic
to say this body we aren’t calling a body
feels more whale in a gold fishes tank, 
more night sky in a 4x4 frame,
more bad touch in a young girls dark bedroom.

I try to think up more poetic sounding ways to say
I feel too big most days, 
try to not be so cliché, so “body this” and “body that”
but I can not fit my forest inside the windowsill,
don’t know how to pull this waterfall through a straw.

I am all back fat and jiggle these days,
all no fit in the fitting room,
all squeezed in and muffin topping out,
more look at all the things I can not wear,
look at all the men who will not love me,
look at all the men who will only fuck me, 
with the lights off,
with their shirts on, 
with their lips kept to themselves because to kiss me
is to lead me on,
is to promise something they can only give to the ones
they can do with open eyes,
and I feel like a floodlight in a shadow.

my sex is not something they can brag about—the fat girl
that gives head like a porn star because she’s gotta be
good at something, gotta earn the lackluster touches they’ll offer somehow
they don’t know how to tell their friends about the one who renamed herself
after every moan, sharp intake of breath, 
and long drawn out expletive to escape them
and I feel like an echo in a bed sheet.

for the women who only kiss me
in crowded clubs once the liquor kicks in
I feel more dance floor in a closet,
and when I wrap my wanting arms around their waists I become
an ink spill in between our clacking teeth, 
and I know that doesn’t make much sense but I’m running out
of logical ways to stuff myself in, 
I’m running out of pretty ways to say obese, 
to say they took what they could get and I was too hungry
to feel ashamed of how I binged on the slightest touch,

don’t know how to fold this flesh like origami,
don’t know how I can be so big yet feel so small,
I am, on most days, trying to figure out how
to not hate reflective surfaces,
taking selfies at an angle, 
eating fast food in my parked car so no one can see the way
this canyon who wishes to be an anthill stuffs its face,
see, this metaphor thing isn’t quite working out, 
but neither is hating my body.