a note to all the girls I used to know who starved themselves
In the beginning, I wanted to tell you I couldn’t stand the sight of you, the thighs fluctuating from fat to thin, or the bony-kneed, arm-laced-with-knife-marks, pale-skinned bodies.
I hated, too, how you wore your not-wanting as a badge of honor, flimsy as the size three dresses you wrapped around hips like cloaks, thick as the cheese you rolled into your napkin, carefully shrouded, to throw away.
I didn’t want to understand. To understand would mean facing everything you wanted, everything we all wanted: a home-place where our shame could evaporate, wisp by wisp, into thin air, like the dry ice in the kettle we’d stir every Halloween in our front yard to draw the trick-or-treaters.
We liked to dress up. I was always a witch, armed with magic wand, magic broom—I could sweep clean the yellow-brick-road of your memories, turn your days from black and white to color, stir the concoction until it tasted right, even to you.
But I can’t go on like this, hating and loving you at the same time.
You were the opposite of carelessness. But somehow you were drawn to me, laying out, methodically, your reasons: You don’t seem to hate your body; you know when you’re hungry; You don’t seem to care how you look.
“Thank god you’re not one of those girls,” my first lover told me, running her palm across my belly.
Some of you wanted to shame me, to stand beside me like pillars of salt, daring me to change you back.
Some of you wanted to fuck me—as if, if your bodies collided with mine, you would turn careless, learn to want again.
“But I won’t look back,” one of you said to me, when I asked how it started, turning my face from your triangle-hip. “If I had to look back, I’ll fall apart.”
I still don’t know what I should have said, should have done. I don't remember how it ended, if it ended. So much I've forgotten in that haze from those years of wanting and not-wanting.
Grown up now, a parade of girls makes its way through my office, carnival-reflections of you. I still don’t know what to say, what to do.
I hated, too, how you wore your not-wanting as a badge of honor, flimsy as the size three dresses you wrapped around hips like cloaks, thick as the cheese you rolled into your napkin, carefully shrouded, to throw away.
I didn’t want to understand. To understand would mean facing everything you wanted, everything we all wanted: a home-place where our shame could evaporate, wisp by wisp, into thin air, like the dry ice in the kettle we’d stir every Halloween in our front yard to draw the trick-or-treaters.
We liked to dress up. I was always a witch, armed with magic wand, magic broom—I could sweep clean the yellow-brick-road of your memories, turn your days from black and white to color, stir the concoction until it tasted right, even to you.
But I can’t go on like this, hating and loving you at the same time.
You were the opposite of carelessness. But somehow you were drawn to me, laying out, methodically, your reasons: You don’t seem to hate your body; you know when you’re hungry; You don’t seem to care how you look.
“Thank god you’re not one of those girls,” my first lover told me, running her palm across my belly.
Some of you wanted to shame me, to stand beside me like pillars of salt, daring me to change you back.
Some of you wanted to fuck me—as if, if your bodies collided with mine, you would turn careless, learn to want again.
“But I won’t look back,” one of you said to me, when I asked how it started, turning my face from your triangle-hip. “If I had to look back, I’ll fall apart.”
I still don’t know what I should have said, should have done. I don't remember how it ended, if it ended. So much I've forgotten in that haze from those years of wanting and not-wanting.
Grown up now, a parade of girls makes its way through my office, carnival-reflections of you. I still don’t know what to say, what to do.
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