Too Fat To Be…

I had heard “You’re too fat to be…”
Before I was 5 years old
So naturally that settled into my subconscious
Like a bug snug in a rug
By 13 I had been kissed
But not by a boy I liked
By a disgusting old man who pretended to be kind
And told me not to tell
And who would believe me
I had already heard “You’re too fat to be…”
Sexually assaulted. Kidnapped.
These were the running jokes that poured more concrete onto
The cement of my earlier belief.
By the time I was 15
I heard from my sister that a boy told her
I was “ too fat to be…”
An athlete. The MVP.
Despite the evidence before him
And me
I believed him
Because once again it matched up
With the words spoken to me before I
Was even in school.
By the time I was 19
I learned from a magazine that
I was “too fat to be…”
Sporting a two piece. Wearing horizontal stripes.
At 22 I gave my body to men
Who didn’t deserve it
Because I was now telling myself
“I’m too fat to be…”
Loved. Desired. Attractive.
So, at 23, I lost a lot of weight
But I believed the people on the fitness forums
Who told me that
I was “Too fat to be…”
A fitness competitor. An inspiration.
At 25 I worked for a weightloss company
That told me that I shouldn’t wear skirts
Despite having lost a whole human of weight
Because I was still
“Too fat to be…”
A role model. Professional.
At 32, I cried to my husband that I would never be
On a Success type magazine
Because I was
“too fat to be…”
Successful. Seen.
That’s when the words he said
became the first crack in the concrete wall of my mind:
“Perhaps you need to be out there
so you can show other people
with bodies like yours that it is,
in fact possible,
to be.”

-teri hofford 2/4/2024-