Fat Girl Ghazal

By

At the bar, I ran into a frat boy who called me a fat girl.
He said, “No one wants to sleep with a fucking fat girl.”

I opened my thighs, joked with him, “Pretty please?”
Later, I mascara-wrecked my pillow, a crying fat girl.

Once, a homeless man freaked out when I ignored him.
He yelled, “Move, you stupid bitch, you fucking fat girl.”

I won’t lie. I called my sister while sobbing on the toilet.
She said, “What is wrong with people?” I said, “Fat girls?”

My boyfriend says he loves my waves of flab, my breasts.
All his exes: skinny. Is he just pretending to like a fat girl?

Get over yourself, I tell myself in mirrors, in reflections.
Because! I’m tired of playing the funny one, the fat girl.

A driver screamed, “Get your fat ass out of the street.”
I looked down, picked up my pace, ashamed, a fat girl.

I suck in my stomach, pull back my shoulders, envious:
the blondes who ride my block on bikes aren’t fat girls.

Some days, I accidentally heave my weight in public.
People stare, “Don’t sit there. Oh shit, another fat girl.”

I’m taught to either love my body, hate it, love it, hate it.
Even friends think, “Steph, you’re pretty! (for a fat girl).”