Belly Fat

I think I am best known in my life for sitting, for not disturbing, for gently speaking, for quiet laughs that are so fraudulent they are criminal.

I am very good at disappearing into the softness of myself. Like rubber, I can fold down into my belly fat, they say belly fat is the hardest to get rid of, at least that’s what the first guy I dated in college said, and I am gone. I am no longer there. I can pull my soft stomach into myself and it is gone too, we are both gone.

In those moments of contortionism... I don’t even know if that’s a word but there has to be a word for folding yourself into nothing. In those moments of contortionism, there is still something inside me, something beneath the belly fat which I am folding around. Something that tells me do not to fold unless it’s your idea.

Truthfully, it’s never my idea. That part at my middle does not want to be blonde anymore, the same part of me that chopped off my long locks before I moved to India but has a little more forethought this time. This part of me does not like to be mistaken for someone who is 18 years old because my soul is old and knows about the many purposes of living.

I am cautious to say that my soul is blonde, the blonde I was before I started to worry about belly fat or listen to men talk about my belly fat. My soul is that gentle blonde color that matches my eyebrows and does not cost 275 dollars + tip every 12 weeks when I visit my hairdresser who has the most beautiful sleeve of tattoos.

That blonde does not fold in on itself because it is itself. What’s so bad about being oneself but what other people say is bad about it. The things that make the people who enjoy watching me fold like me are the things that aren’t so good. Fraudulent laughter is only nice to hear on sitcoms and I have one small wrinkle etched under my left eye from that lopsided sad smile I do.

As for the gentle speaking, it’s not so gentle after all. Nothing can be gentle if its echo is a scream.

Stop buying the high-waisted bikinis, you weigh 120 pounds. As if that even matters.

Have you forgotten that you hate the smell of bleach on your hair?

Also, you have never been someone who enjoys sitting down.