The Skin I Live In

I look in the mirror and think to myself

Whose body is this?

Everything I know about it I’ve learned from someone else

Age nine eating cherry popsicles in a purple two piece

My neighbor licks the syrup from her lips before declaring that my butt’s a bubble

She’d very much like to pop

And I look at my reflection in the sliding glass door

Having never considered the size or shape of it until this moment

Strange that the longer I stare, the larger it grows

Now I always take a picture from behind before I leave the house.

Age 10 “dating” a boy named Jamie with golden blonde hair shaped like a bowl

Passing notes covered in smiley faces with their tongues hanging out

Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.

Until recess when it turned out he was the one who was tired

Tired of me

He didn’t want a girl whose chest was flat

Like a commercial, he taught me I was missing something

Though I’d just given up on Santa Claus the year before

Age 11 taping cotton balls inside my JCPenney training bra

Age 14 sewing cups into my one-piece bathing suit

Age 16 sticking rubber chicken cutlets against my nipples

Now I always refuse help from the Victoria’s Secret ladies.

Age 20 breaking up with my first love

My body nearly disappears and yet

It receives more attention from men than ever

When I’m 105 it doesn’t seem to matter much if I’m dead inside

Because I’m warm to the touch

And the tight waist of my double zero jeans keeps my guts from spilling to the floor

I’m starving, but I swear it’s the lust that makes me dizzy

Age 21 eating a steady diet of Zoloft, cereal bars and gin buckets

I am brought back to life

With curves jumping from the page of my story like a pop-up book

I am soft flesh again

And my roommate says she’s happy for me but also

She likes going back to the way things were

See, I need to be the bigger one

Because there’s only room for one manic pixie dream girl at every basement party

So I make a photo collage of my before-and-after body

I am thin and dead then fat and alive

All on one poster board

I hide it underneath my bed and dream that I am a sinking anchor

Now my roommate and I don’t speak.

Age 25 percolating with possibilities, I’m a woman in the city after dark

A tall man acknowledges I am alive until we get to the bar

Where he finds a leggy blonde

Who laughs and bites him with unnaturally white teeth

I receive unsolicited advice from the tall man’s friend

A 24-year-old version of John Belushi

He puts his hands on my shoulders and spits in my ear

He’s never going to go for a girl like you!

The bass pounds through my chest

While he stares at me like I’m the last dog in the pound

The guy that looks like he’s from Animal House

So I make my way back to my apartment

My ugliness reflected in a hundred windows

Illuminated by the streetlights for the whole world to see

Now I know the question’s answer

My body is yours

And I just live there

Beneath its skin