by Oyindamola Shoola
It weighs heavy in my mouth like the additional slices of crackers with gently laid cream cheese and jam I swallow at 2:03 am, after promising that the previous and the previous would be my last piece.
Fat.
Every time I look at the mirror, grab my fat belly admirably and unapologetically say that I love it, it feels like I am offending someone else.
Why do I have to say fat “unapologetically?”
I want to tell my friends to stop correcting my words as a way of proving support or empathy every time I say, “I look fat.”
“Oh, stop kidding! You are not fat. I am fat.” They say, as though there is an Olympics of fat acknowledgment they must win.
I do not understand when my co-worker rants to me that she “feels fat?” How is being fat a feeling? Well, I ask that in my head but do not say anything. I am guilty of saying that too.
#FeelingFat.
I convince myself that it is muscle I am gaining, especially when I go to the gym just to feel better about having a little fat.
There are days when I want to say “I want to be fat” without having to add “just a little bit” like a period concluding such sentences and I want it to sound complete and acceptable, tantalizing people’s ears in the same way as the phrase “I want to be thin.”
Fat. It amuses me how people like to be selectively fat. You tell someone they have a fat belly and it sounds like an insult, but you tell them they have a fat ass and that may be the best compliment they’ll receive for a while.
Fat. It sounds better when I say that “I am thick,” doesn’t it? Like the police of fat appropriation will punish you for calling things as they are. Same way you’ll like “chubby babies” over fat ones.
Word-cuffing-fat!
It curls underneath the carpet of my tongue every time I see another social media post or magazine or mall section with “plus-sized models.” I wonder if it never occurs to these marketers to say “subtracted-sized models” or “skinny models” when they introduce the “normalized body-type species.”
Is it sheer ignorance that the fashion industry doesn’t say much about male “plus-sized models” or is the passion for fat confidence exclusive to female models?
Fat–on social media, I see many write about it like it’s a foreign language you need to translate to cute convenience–Phat.
Now, I want to be the type of fat I was when I was skinny but thought that I was fat. I know that I will wish this again sometime in the future.
I think I am submitting to loving my fat because I am becoming more unwilling to change it and give up what comes with unloving it.
Fat. This word swallows my tongue, and to acknowledge it as some form of bravery… I think the fuck not.
Oyindamola Shoola is a writer, and the Co-founder of SprinNG, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing Nigerian literature. She has published 5 books and plans to pursue a Masters in Creative Writing at Emerson College in the fall of 2020. She will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, concentration – Organizational Behavior and Change in May 2020. www.shoolaoyin.com