Punctuation

"Pick me Apart"

People tell me I'm not those things now.

The words I battled from other girls' mouths in the locker room,

the snickers at the rolls of my tummy, the thickness of my arms and thighs,

the roundness and puffiness of my face;

my shoulders were always too broad to be beautiful

and my face would melt off while we ran laps because I feared the rawness of my bare complexion.

And they would poke fun at my "jiggles"...

even after they watched me run 15 more laps than the track star to their right.

My endurance was featherweight compared to the sum of the gravity they assumed was in my steps.

Maybe they were too preoccupied forging friendships over my unfortunate shape to realize that there is the same force of gravity working on all of us alike.

And maybe they were too pleased with themselves and the ingenuity of their mimicry of me to realize that the weight of their laughter was really what made me so much heavier than they were.

People tell me I'm not those things now.

The jokes spouted off at me on the playground while I walked on the border separating the asphalt and the mulch in my solitude...

because no one would invite the "fat girl" to play kickball.

"She has no friends beyond the ones living inside of her head."

No one wanted to play on the see-saw with the "fat girl".

No one wanted to play tag with the "fat girl".

No one wanted the "fat girl".

But people tell me I'm not those things now.

They say "I can't find a single flaw," and "you've made tremendous strides."

They say, "your flaw is not giving yourself enough credit," and "you bring yourself down when you don't have a single reason to."

They tell me, "dance more", "you're perfect the way you are", "ur style is awesome", and "you're too hard on yourself, you're too hard on yourself, you're too hard on yourself."

To them, I am not the "fat girl" or "too pale"; to them, I am not the size of my feet or the rawness and redness of my bare complexion.

Maybe I never wore those Hollister jeans and name brand sneakers that you did, but they say I can rock a flare out skirt and walk like a lady in high heels.

People tell me I'm not these things any more.

The people that matter, the people I trust, the people I love.

These people have taught me the lessons in becoming the girl who no longer fears looking in the mirror to see her true outward identity.

They have taught me to be the person who doesn't let others tell her who she should look like, what she should wear, how she should wear it, when she should stop talking and laughing and living.

These people have watered me, helped me to grow..

all despite your jokes, harsh words, rumors, and calculated arrows to the heart.

I can name my shoe size without becoming timid in the memory of your cruel laughter.

I can smile proudly at something I've created even after he told me I was too talentless to enter a talent show.

But....

despite the positive reinforcement and the love and encouragement; despite all I have grown from,

despite the fact that this new girl I am knows that people genuinely love her, knows that select people find her beautiful and intelligent and creative...

she still hears their laughter, their jokes, their evil words, and those pains still throb to this day.

She feels the heat of the hatred because it takes ten times the amount of compliments to stitch up a wound this profound.

The hatred is like lava...and sometimes it takes these radiant compliments at the surface of her heart and just melts them all away.