Sizing

The woman looks at me, says

to the hotel owner, on the phone,

“She’s a gordita; I don’t know if

she can walk to your place.”

 

and something inside me shatters

again into 1000 pieces.

I want…

Or maybe I don’t know

what I want.

 

To just feel normal? To tattoo

on my forehead, “You don’t

know my story; you don’t know

I have already lost 75 pounds,

you don’t know what I have

gone through, what I did to

get here?”

 

You also do not know:

what this body has done,

has lost, can still do. That it

can lift 100 pounds, break

down a door, climb a tree,

walk 20 miles, scale a mountain,

comfort a crying stranger,

wrestle a cow to the ground.

 

Love like no-one else

you have ever known.

 

I saw the way you looked

at him; I noted the way he

looked at her- like their eyes

hold the secrets of everything

you ever needed to know

about your own being,

like something you invest in

for the rest of your life.

 

Maybe I DO know

what I want-

just that someone looks

at me that same way, one day.

 

The closest I came, I think

was once holding a young soul

in an old body, and once, an

old soul in a young body;

two unexpected afternoons,

two gifts given on temporary loan.

And we memorized each other’s

perfections and flaws like

a test we both had to study for-

one that Life itself depended on.

 

Sizing isn’t everything.

Counting should be more.

 

What size must a woman be,

for us to simply say, she has the

body of a woman her age?

How may degrees must she hold,

before we address her by

her title?

How many times must she

show up, before we say, she too

is verifiably one of us?

How rich is her husband, for us

to call her, successful?

 

How much weight should she

lose, in order to start being visible?

 

Author's Note

I think that many women can relate to this one.

Spanish version here: http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/zorra_encantada/1955522/

picture is my own, it is of me, after celebrating a large weight loss and body condition recovery that took 8 years.