My childhood was measured
By smushed handfuls of red raspberries
That stained my clothes methodically.
By counting sports cars instead of shooting stars
After all, we have enough in the suburbs to last us a while.
By "don't touch this" that comes with the affluence
Of one of the most prosperous counties in the country.
By butterfly T-shirts that were stitched together with secrets
By people picking and prodding at my size
By "if only I was skinny" vibrating my eardrums
As I had heard it from so many people before I hit the age of 12.
By being different
As at thirteen, I had no interest in make-up or push up bras or jocks
But punk rock music and a boy who was a little bit more dangerous than I anticipated.
By unwanted touches from uninvited men
Who took it upon themselves to show me womanhood
Before I could identify it myself
By the way my father stopped looking at me
As though I was his little girl
Because he began to find out where my skin has wandered.
By how my father had stopped looking at me quite some time ago
Because I was never his skinny spitting image of perfection
By the way he criticized my clothing
Told me if I wanted people to make fun of me for my size
If I wanted people to call me a ****
Then I could wear whatever the hell I wanted.
When I replied that I, in fact, did not give a flying ****
My mother chimed in
"Well you should."
And by the way complete strangers have told me to go on a diet
While others have screamed from passing cars
"****, baby, look at that body"
As though my body is my worth
And as though my worth is something to be measure
I have been taught that my worth is something tangible
That can be compacted into a little box with a pretty pink bow
Stuck on a scale and weighed
And that the number I see on that scale
The number of pounds that my body physically contains
Directly correlates with my worth as a person.
Do those strangers that hound me about my weight even stop to think
That I spend hours in front of the mirror
Pinching my skin into too-tight jeans
******* in my stomach because I just want to look my thinnest?
Do they even wonder about my past
How I have tried to diet and that is the only time I can remember my father
Treating me like a decent human being?
Oh, but I didn't lose much weight
In fact, the only time I really lost anything significant
Was when I was bulimic.
But they don't question that either.
And to the strangers who catcall me
That "body" has been abused by men I have trusted
That "body" has lost all control on a bed when a man took it from her
That "body" is strong, healthy and beautiful
It is not just a door mat for you to wipe your paws on
It is not just a *** toy whose sole purpose is to satisfy you
And then be thrown away
Is this what it means to be a woman?
To have your personhood and purpose in this world
Be quantified and made so it can be held in the same small palms
That smushed raspberries at six years old?
I hope that my worth can someday be more
Than a measurement.