Skinny Girl Memoir

By Natalie Mojica

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Growing up surrounded by women of color, I always felt isolated by the fact that my body was different from those of the beautiful women around me. This poem was my moment of solidarity; my body is no one’s but my own and I don’t need anyone else’s approval.

I know distance more than I know company, 

and when my family pinches at the fat around my 

waist I am taken back to the motherland for a 

brief moment. my grandmother is sitting in the 

backyard, drinking the cafe bustelo my mother 

sent her and smiling, she beckons me towards her 

and I set on her lap blissful and naive to what the 

next twelve years of my life will become. the moment 

ends almost as quickly as it started and my aunt is 

questioning if I eat enough at home, my cousin is 

grimacing as her curves are compared to the angles 

my body is made out of and both of our bodies 

have become spilled coffee stains on the floor for 

other people to step on; everyone in my aunt’s 

too small kitchen is laughing and I feel as if somebody

has set me on fire. my skin becomes paper 

and my skeleton becomes full of the debris I tried 

so desperately to sweep under the rug my twelve 

year old insecurities come flying out again like a genie 

from a magic lamp simply by the sound of drunken

family laughter and I cannot breathe. I have never 

smoked before but in that moment I swear there is no 

oxygen in the world and my lungs are filled with 

tobacco made from the scars on my body that never 

healed and nicotine-like unspilled tears. my cousin is 

blushing and I know that it bothers her that her father’s 

friend is staring at her in a way less than appropriate way because

it bothers me that my father’s friend is staring at me as

if I were a blow up doll made simply for his pleasure.

the twelve year old inside of me, filled with insecurities is 

screaming with shame but the fourteen year old me is 

sighing because she knows— 

we’ve been through this process so many times we 

know it by heart, it is wrong but it is to be expected and 

the newly fifteen year old girl I have become stays silent. 

I pretend that my aunt’s sharp fingernails poking me 

don’t feel like knives, I smile and laugh with them, 

when my aunt says that my hips are finally growing in 

I do not say that this is not an accomplishment, that

my body growing is not a trophy for the public to stare 

at. instead I nod and feel my throat constrict with 

anger so immense it is like a monsoon inside of me. but

I do not speak. my obedience has become a habit too 

hard to break. I know distance more than I know 

company because even if my body is an abandoned home 

that grows only weeds in the backyard it is my

abandoned home.