for the faint of heart

⇸ catalogue

your thighs are huge
you say this like i don't know
like i don't see it everyday
when i try to squeeze into skinny jeans
that make me feel anything but
because they are so so tight;
like i don't feel it
when i wear shorts and they brush together in a collision of flesh —
sliding, scraping, hurting.
at your words? or at my own body,
the damned traitor?
who knows, honestly
i sure don't anymore.

your feet are so big
you say this like i don't know
like i don't wish they could be
just a bit
smaller,
just a little bit
skinnier,
just a little bit more
unlike me —
like i don't wish my feet
were small enough like
cinderella's, perfectly fitting
into that goddamned glass slipper looking like a dream.

you're so tall
you say this like i don't know
like i do not have to crane my
neck this way and that or bend my knees to be in pictures with people who complain about
how they wished they also had this blessing of a curse
(but not really because they
do not know what it truly entails);
like i do not run into things and hurt
myself on other people simply
because my limbs are too long —
i think if you look long enough
you can see that the bruises are
inside
and
out.

but i have realized
that i am not a fucking catalogue
you cannot pick and choose which
simply looks prettier or nicer or tell me that the issue that i've gotten
is wrong.

i am the way i am
i was born this way and i
am still learning to love
the skin i was given.

and if you don't like it?

well, buddy, i got news for you:
that's your problem, not mine.

✧ ✧ ✧

may 5, 2016.