I remember vividly that summer of 2012,

When I lost inches from the back of my body like a tortoise coming out of its shell. 

 

I remember how I had entered the classroom the first day after the holidays and all the kids wanted to know why, no, how I wasn't bursting out of my uniform anymore. 

 

Everybody said it was my swimming class, 

I knew it was my depression.

 

My morher reminds me it was the best summer I ever had, 

it was the best I ever looked, 

then asks what went wrong this time around. 

 

I realise they like me best when I'm sad, but shapely. 

 

Now, 

summer before freshman year, 

 I don't look like the people on my college brochure. 

 

I don't have their body or their happiness or their sense of achievement. 

 

Sometimes when I tell my friends that they should love themselves like I love myself, I know I'm lying. 

 

Because I don't love myself when my shirts don't fit and I don't love myself when I'm looking for clothes I know I can't pull off but I try them on anyway. 

 

Trial rooms are my battlegrounds and I die on every ride back home because I know something's going to shrink in the washing machine. 

 

Every time I meet someone I wait for their eyes to travel down and realise that I'm disproportionate.

 

It is only when I see self-appreciation posts and hear poems about pain that I realise I might have a teensy problem. 

 

I don't talk about this with my friends. I don't know how to. 

 

Because again, me with my schemes and ideas to change the world,  

why should I think it matters what my body looks like? 

 

I wonder what it says about me that even in my dreams, 

even when I'm changing the world, 

I'm a size smaller. 

I'm a thinner frame, I'm more likely to be seen. 

 

The morning my mother tells me I'm overweight, 

I ask her, 'Why does it matter? I'm my mind, I'm myself.' 

 

She says, 'Because you could be better.' 

 

By better she means smart, yes, but thinner,

creative, yes, but thinner,

confident, yes, but thinner,

her overachieving, far sighted, but hour-glass daughter. 

 

I tell her I'm counting on my sadness to make me.