Size 3
Locations
My mother tells me she used to believe in
abortion. Said her body wasn't ready to
cradle stretch marks that would tuck into her.
She is addicted to alignment. Thinks the arcs
of her stomach should run parallel with her hip bone.
she was so afraid her thighs would spread wider than
wire hangers, she made her body spit up its insides.
Her blood settling in puddles on
our bathroom floor. She tells me "these are
how angels look." She can't tell when a body
is wounded from starving. My mother has
always fit in a size 3. Now, I watch as her
Stomach pushes past her chest like plastic
hangers bent from wet clothes. Hates the way
her skin laps over itself. No longer fitting into
my fathers desires. She tells me, she doesn't
know how it feels for him to tread his fingertips
down spreading stretch marks. She's sick of elastic
waist bands. Wishes the mirror captured the woman
who blended in the creases of bed sheets. The insides
of her thighs are bruised. Jeans swing in her closet
because they hang uneven. She doesn't know how
it feels for them to not brush past each other. "Kyndall
go to the gym with me, I'll pay you." Like I wouldn't do
it if she just asked. Her body hold yeild signs. Vulnerability
etches itself over her skin. I'm scared to ask if this outfit
makes me too big. My sister taunts me at dinner.
Says the youngest always ends up being the bigest.
Jagging her fingers in my side, howling "you're the fattest,
just stop eating." I want to believe that beauty doesn't
always have to fit into a size 3. Yesterday, I stretched
a wire hanger so far it broke, like my mother did the day
she filled trash bags with clothes too tight for her thick
wooled body. I want to believe that God made me with motive.
Not wanting me heavy with pounds or skin sucked bone.
Wire hanger are not meant to bend and mothers are not
break. We all turn our body sideways in mirrors sometimes
but eventually, we have to face ourselves.