remembering

every single day they tell me how tiny i am. every day. for the first time in my life i am not exaggerating. perhaps it's because half the hospital employees are overweight. perhaps it's because what they say is true.

today i stand in the changing room in farmers. mother tries on shirt after shirt. red and pink and yellow. i look at myself in the mirror. do department stores have skinny mirrors so unsuspecting people will think their butt is smaller than it actually is and therefore buy the jeans even though their butt is still the same size? note to self and others - skinny jeans do not make you skinny if you're fat.

for once the mirror doesn't lie to me. in my jeans and coat i am tiny, doll-like. i could break if you touched me. my clothes suck me in, hide the yards of fat which i know are underneath.

finally i see myself as other people do. i am a concrete shadow, angel wings lying on the road.

the fat melts off the bird bones underneath, but so does my personality, the things that make me me.

i wrap my coat tighter around me, feel the way my thighs do not touch, the way my scapulae press hard against the wall when i lean back.

i wish that i could fly.