My Worth is Not Based On Societal Standards of Beauty
When you're a fat girl, you learn early to question the motives of those around you. Society teaches you that you're unworthy of friendship, popularity, romance, beauty. Your belief of the existence of those things is dependent upon knowing the only way you can achieve them is through a punch line. So that's why if she had met me a year ago, my heart would have melted at her soft words, but my head would have screamed at me to run. If her petite fingertips had run down my ribcage like she was playing the instrument she loves so dearly, I would have tried desperately not to flinch or feel sick with unworthiness for days after. I would have kept the thought that her body atop mine felt more like I was a mountain she had to climb, to myself. If she had met me a year ago, I wouldn't have known how to be loved by a skinny girl, because I didn't even know how to love myself. But this is now and I've since learned. I am worthy of popularity, friendship, romance, and I am beautiful beyond cosmic measure. And when that skinny girl touches my skin like I am made of the most precious star, and looks at me like she is a wolf and I am the moon, I don't contemplate the worthiness of my existence in her life. I don't question her affection or her motives. I don't flinch. (r.h.)
