Day 7: This Is Why You're Fat

She eyed my granola yogurt mixture before the grainy neon
digital lights on the microwave read 9:00 AM
Before my coffee
Before boredom slipped into another poem
Penned slyly in Outlook email

She spoke

Told me her daughter was about my age
about my coloring
about my size
Yes, my daughter has a weight problem
Like you

Like you

Like these are the moments we are told to clutch saliva like an heirloom
And choke on spit scorn teeth that want to scream
LADY.. I’m a size 10
8 on good days
Women like you
Are MY weight problem

Women like you sculpt mannequins out of tear stained pillows
and tell yourself their perfection
Warn pretty girls of blueberry stained smiles
Lips tasting every bite like we never cried tears
after pie-filled bellies

Broken
You craft our hands into delicate munchers
Daydreaming about plates next portion
Week’s next menu
Until we could no longer distinguish hunger
From addiction.

Women like you
taught us what emptiness feels like

The gradual and gnawing pain that grows deeper

in our stomachs
Until we convince ourselves this is what
thin is

Fattening ourselves on the moment
Like indulgence was a playground we’ve
been missing since youth.