Making Life Turns Your Body Into Public Domain

Making Life Turns Your Body Into Public Domain

MAKING LIFE TURNS YOUR BODY INTO PUBLIC DOMAIN

You will become so fat.

Here. here. Here.

As he proceeded to point out areas of my body

like a consumer selecting pieces of meat at a butcher.

My thighs are mine.

Dimpled from being human (alive) and

toned from life as a dancer.

Always a fight with my shape

in the mirror staring me down

challenging me to find a smaller, sharper profile.

But still. Mine 

And now I had to share it.

Not just that.

Someone else would inhabit my body.

And friends. Family. Strangers.

Would comment and poke and prod.

Because making life turns your body into public domain.

I can't wait to see the fat version of you.

I punched him in the arm. Being pregnant is not fat. 

Unlike selections of sirloin or chicken breast, bigger isn't always better.

-----

After for months, maybe even a year,

my scar Burns and feels pain.

Like a mouth sewn shut it wants to scream.

New thighs, a soft and deflated gut, broadened hips

and the hug of the measuring tape

stretches to numbers I hadn't seen before.

I love the new life I created but hate

my saggy body that doesn’t fit quite right.

Learning how to move in it is like

operating an animatronic creature

that is beyond myself.

“Six to 9 months you will be back to your pre-baby weight.”

But month after month fell off the calendar

unlike the pounds of fat buried beneath

my flesh that clung on

And on.