warning: another poem about (past) body image issues.
***
i finger-and-thumbed my way across
the length of my wrist
at 6-7:30pm on a wednesday evening after school,
and in the seam between the two
i felt a pinch of skin that was
invisible on the other side of
my least-favourite bracelet of flesh and bone,
which broke my heart in a million stupid ways
because invisible pinched skin is still
an infinite eternity
when your jewellery is already
far too big and fat and heavy:
only more proof that the equator of
the thinnest moment of my arm
was roughly the size of the bloated earth
and unable to be squeezed tighter,
though i tried, i swear i tried.
so imagine my surprise when
at 8-9am on the thursday morning before school,
my friend laughs and takes my hand
and suddenly (me turning red because it looks so large and squished and blotched with yellow and pink and my veins look fit to bursting against theirs which has all the empty weight of a petal)
we are joined palm-to-palm,
and they laugh again, saying
"your hands are so small!"
i should probably try a tape-measure, next time.
