I don't think I've ever heard my father
Tell my mother that she was beautiful.
I'm sure of it.
Never.
There wasn't any positive comments on her appearance.
"Fix yourself up a bit!"
"When are you going to lose some weight?"
"I don't like your hair that way."
When I was sixteen I wrote her a note for mother's day
Telling her that she was genuinely beautiful.
And she cried.

I can't think of any positive comments on my appearance
That either of them spoke to me,
That didn't revolve around losing weight.
And then was only when I was throwing up on a daily basis.
Pocketing lunch money,
And measuring out one cup of cheerios every day
That I eventually stopped eating,
And starting storing in gallon bags hidden under my bed.
"Are you losing weight, good for you?"
It wasn't even that I looked good.
Or that I looked beautiful.
Or even that I looked healthy.
Just good that there was becoming less of me.
And to keep at it.
And I'm sorry sometime I try to fight you when you say you like my stomach.
I was always told it was unsightly and needed to be smaller.

My little sister listens when they call her fat, that her *** is big, that she needs to lose weight.
Constantly.
Not other kids.
My parents.
She asked me why she didn't have a boyfriend.
She's 15.
She thinks she is fat and doesn't like the way she looks.
I try to corner her every once in a while
And tell her not to listen to our parents.
Tell her that she is beautiful.
That her hair is soft, and her eye brows are flawless, and her tummy is gorgeous.

There has to be someone there to do that for her.
Someone to counter the words of authority.
And tell her that she is gorgeous.
So she never has to meet Ana or Mia.
Because she was average to below average weight
When she was in preschool,
and I in elementary school,
And were put on weight watchers by our mother in the summers.
Maybe because she was never told that she was beautiful.
And it poisoned her.