I’m not fat,
But I have a weird, balloon-like stomach.
Know what a beer belly looks like?
Yeah that’s it.
Even though, I swear to God,
I’ve never so much as tasted a drop of beer.
body image, bullying, beauty standards

I’m 16 years old.
People have made fun of me ever since I was little.
My father was very short,
And I was born a twin.
To make sense of the way I looked,
They used to tell me,
That my twin brother was trying to absorb me,
When we were in our mother’s womb.
But what happened was that he absorbed my food instead.

I have big ears.
That’s not a bad thing!
But I’ve been bullied a lot.
The kind of bullying that made me hate the fact that I have big ears.
I would imagine sometimes going into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and cutting them off.

I was a bit fat when I was a teenager,
And I had freckles.
I was always told I’d look pretty if I lost a bit of weight.
“Why don’t you go see a dermatologist for your freckles?”
“How come you’re not skinny like your siblings?

I was born with an autoimmune disease,
That attacks the thyroid gland.
I started showing symptoms when I was 5 years old.
I was a fat child.
I’ve been fat for as long as I could remember.
I was bullied ever since I was little,
By everyone in my life,
Because of my weight.

Ever since elementary school,
I’ve been told that I’m overweight.
That I have curves that make me look older than I am.
I decided to lose weight when I went to university.
Even though I wasn’t really overweight.
A lot of people even told me that I had a good body.
body image, bullying, beauty standards

I’ve always been fat though with varying degrees.
I’m on a diet now, and I’m trying to eat healthy.

All my life, people have been telling me to lose weight,
Regardless of who these people are and what sort of relationship I have with them.
body image, bullying, beauty standards, parents

When I was young, my mother used to cut my hair even though I would beg her not to.
I had always wanted to have long hair.
“Your hair looks like a loofa,” she would always say.
I couldn’t tie it back when it was short.
It looked terrible under the hijab with the school uniform.
I was bullied at school because of my hair.
People would touch it and make fun of me.
body image, hair, beauty standards, bullying

When I was in the 7th grade,
My gym class teacher told me in the playground in front of all of my classmates
“Look at how big your boobs are? Are you not wearing a bra?”
She made fun of me and they laughed.
Even since then I genuinely hate my boobs.
body image, bullying

I am not obligated to have my headphones on whenever I’m walking so I wouldn’t have to hear what they say.
Because even if I can’t hear them, I can still see the way they look at me.
social stigma, social pressure, masculinity, bullying, the street