Size Too

She looked at me with condemning eyes

As I approached her with my crashing thighs

From the other sides of the dress store

What size?

She said

The question we curvy girls all dread

The one that has been wandering through my head

Ever since the thread of prom dresses started on Facebook

Two.

Her head shook.

It was one of those awkward silences

The kind that you think you can only discover at waiting rooms

At clinics

Or after he tells you he loves you

And you can’t mutter out

Or stutter out

The words “me too”

She looks me up and down

Like she’s Nicolas Cage

Who’s found a new tasteless film to star in

She says

Sorry sweetheart

You’re not that thin

And with a grin she hands me a size twelve

Saying this is what you’ll fit in

Big mistake

It took only a moment for me to make up my mind

To kick her bony behind

I told you I’m a size two

And that’s the truth

I’m a size too powerful to fit your standards

Too chill to be wound up like lanyards

Too smart to have hair this light

And too fast not to be in flight

Too beautiful not to shatter your sight

Too mourning the death of girls who look like sex

Because they have extra padding underneath a dress

And I must confess that I’m a size too white to have these breasts

Too young to have a heart this wise in my chest

And too fatherless to be such a success

Too girly to possess a voice that can stress all the things that make me stressed

And speak when I’m getting less than I deserve

Too much from the burbs to serve you

With rhymes that can swerve you off your path

Too error depleted for this to be the first draft

Too artsy to be decent in math

Too high school to not give a crap

Whether guys think I’m hot

Or if I should be putting more of my stew in the pot

And ask me if I’ve ever done drugs

Or beer

And have no fear to proclaim

I do not!

I’m too old to have never been kissed

And too outspoken to have ever been missed

Too forward to be tricked

By the tip of a trick that would stick memories of him

I wish I could lick

Each and every one of them and never swallow

Keep their trim on the rim of my mouth

Too bold not to shout

The truth whenever I find it

Too cinematic not to rewind it

And sign every moment like I owned it

With poems like this

And most of all

I’m too good for you bitch

Too good to be constrained by the perceptions in your brain

Because they drive me insane

And you’ve struck out

Even though your ball is in the wrong lane

And just so I don’t have to refrain

You are a size zero

Zero respect for anyone who wants to infect

This world with something more than tits on stick

Zero ability to reflect

And realize that those Starbucks lattes are like toats gonna pack on you

From your thighs to your toes

And zero understanding that you looked better with your old nose

I’m a size too fat to rise to the occasion

Take your words and rearrange them

And explain them so you know what you just said

And you can go to bed at night and cry for the lies this world has told you

How it molds you into ordinary

Thinking standard was extraordinary

Because guess what?

I like that I jiggle

It lets my body dance even when I’m not

And even though you might think I’m chubby and not hot

I’m a hell of a lot more creative on the spot

I’m a virgin who won’t make his bed rock

But make his heart stop

Because I’m starting a revolution

Where we pick up the pollution

Left by the media

And it’s promotions that twigs are beautiful

And it’s preconceived notions

That when a girl weighs over 150 pounds

You can discard her emotions

So there is going to be a little commotion

Greater than the earthquake that erupts in China when I jump up and down

I’m going to rearrange this nation

And I’m starting with this town

Because I’m not the only size too

You’ll find around

 And I don’t need you

To find the perfect gown.