The screen stares back into my tired eyes
as if snow fallen freshly from the starless sky.
My fingers rest upon random keys
as a sailor stuck on calm, unmoving seas.
The thoughts suspend inside my head
as if I were a corpse, freshly dead.
I am a writer who cannot write
as if I were the moon without a night.

Big. Large. Curvy. Voluptuous.
No. I am fat, and that is okay.
You use flowery words
to dignify my existence
in an attempt to not hurt my feelings.
You drop these terms like
petals fallen from a cherry tree,
so delicately, so artfully, so daintily
yet they beat upon my heart
like a violent downpour.

By avoiding the word "fat"
you have accomplished the opposite
of your intention.
By avoiding the word "fat"
you are telling me that how
I look is inherently wrong.
By avoiding the word "fat"
you only confirm that I am
something to be massively ashamed of.

I am not ashamed of my body
though I do struggle to love myself
in a society that tells me I am not worthy
by avoiding three little letters,
or using them to insult me,
but I do not take offense.
Big. Large. Curvy. Voluptuous.
No. I am fat, and that is okay.

I watch from the outside
because I cannot seem to move
towards smiling faces, laughing.
I stand here with something to prove.

A poetry reading, a crowded pub,
even just a trip to the local store
are mountains that stand before me,
over which I achingly long to soar.

Home has beccome my sanctuary,
imprisoning me in my shell.
Alone I find my inner peace,
alone I find my inner hell.

This duality is laughable,
paradoxically holding me in stasis.
I have the ability to act
but my potential is simply wasted.

At their mere thought of people,
I sweat profusely, my heart pounds
and no matter what I do
I cannot seem to calm myself down.

What am I supposed to do?
How do I change what I feel?
How can I convince myself
that the fears I have are not real?

I am drawn to the possibility
of your ****** feathers,
black, blue, white, endless variety;
chances I will never take.

I am awed by the beauty
of you soaring high above the world,
your song echoes in my heart;
A life I will never live.

I am a fool,
I know this to be true,
that I should dream
of the morning dew
covering the unkempt grass,
while birds sing wistfully
a song nothing else could surpass.
Yet the night is beautiful,
a darkness I call home,
still I dream of morning
while laying here all alone.

I never knew that I could feel
desirable, beautiful, and strong
because I've always been told
the way that I look is all wrong.
I am a large woman,
so I must not be appealing,
I have been cruelly brainwashed
into shamefully concealing
my body and even my mind
all because I was assured
that love, I would never find.

Suddenly my world has opened
and slowly my confidence has grown
all because he came into my life
and called me his very own.
I am now certain of my beauty
though it is a tragedy that I could only see
after he entered my life
and declared that he truly wanted me.
I look back in utter disgust
that I didn't see it long before
a man showed me my worth
by gracing my bedroom door.