Fat is a convent, protecting the sacred heart, keeping soul, keeping mind, keeping time.
Fat is white knight armor, staving off romantic lunges, saving spirit, saving the female gift, saving phobics fierce plunges into folly.
Fat is spectacular, a saintly, chenille shawl, swaddling the abandoned babe, calming the chilled, needy child, comforting, hiding, yet chiding its bearers.
Fat is a negotiator between woman and her world. With curves and rolls she controls who may enter, see, share, touch the pearls of her.
Fat is that thing we hug, sizzle, and chew, obsessing daily how to banish bulges, while clinging fast and true .
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been "chubby" all my life, was teased mercilessly in grade school, and I'm still a Lane Bryant customer, just smaller sizes these days. However, this poem was written in 1999 when I weighed approximately 80lbs more than I do now (a gain induced by a certain medication). The weight dropped off the summer of 2002 due to my kidney illness, which is not weight-related. (Doctors don't know what's behind it.) I had no appetite. Losing weight that way is scary. Not even your doctors applaud. But I'm still grateful the weight came off.
I never thought I would see the day when my mother and father would follow me around begging me to eat something. I was visiting home, New Orleans. They'd give me a small plate of food. Half an hour later my mother would inspect the plate and say, "You're not fooling anybody. You just moved that around on your plate. Eat!" What a Twilight Zone.
BTW, for any woman out there who thinks her weight is the cause of her marital struggles, stop it! I was a BBW when I met my ex. He announced he wanted a divorce after the weight fell off. Lose weight for yourself, for the sake of your health, nobody else.