How to Make Myself Small

When a fat stranger sits down next to me on the bus, I don’t encourage the part of myself that feels comfort and safety and love to this complete stranger when they choose me, of all people, to sit next to.

I don’t try to telepathize a welcome, a safe space, a “it’s okay if your hips touch my hips and your legs my legs because that was bound to happen in such a small space, and we are fat, we understand that about each other, and we know that we are making ourselves small for the world, as small as we can, and I hate that you have to deal with that, but I love that you know that about me, that I don’t have to hear your thoughts tell me how disgusting it is, my body, how flagrantly it flaunts its size and unhealth because that is what a fat body is, isn’t it, big and unhealthy and undesirable, and it doesn’t matter how many studies there are on the harm of diet culture, how well-documented medical fatphobia, medical fat discrimination is, how genetics play a role in all our bodies, how these things affect patient outcomes too—no, no, The Body is a product of will and strength and moral character and everyone can have the body and health they want if they work hard enough for it, if they aren’t degenerates like me, a fucking criminal, there are kids watching me eat and what are they going to learn from that, think of the example I’m setting and go eat some fucking vegetables so tomorrow’s youth doesn’t end up looking like that looking like me”…because your thoughts aren’t like that, are they, when you think of me sitting next to you like we are right now, and you smile, as if you’re trying to telepathize something too, something like “it’s okay if your arm touches my arm, if your knee knocks into my knee because that was bound to happen in such a small space, and we are fat, we understand that about each other, and we know that the size of the world wasn’t made with us in mind, we know the humiliation of asking for seatbelt extenders on an airline, we know the frustration of a notebook in our lap because we cannot use the desks in this lecture hall, and we know the dance of the bus ride, too, the lean against the window, into the aisle, just to get away from the thin person next to us so we don’t have to hear all those thoughts you mentioned, we can just be people who have even an ounce of dignity recognized by other people, like now, like with you, and our bodies don’t have to be shameful displays of gluttony or sloth, we don’t have to hold our breath, our stomach, we can breathe, in and out, together, like we are human, like flesh is not a sin, like the thoughts people have about our bodies don’t just not matter, but don’t exist at all.”

When I leave the bus first, to go home and shut myself up in my apartment until I have to leave again, I don’t let my thoughts linger there, on that seat, next to someone who chose my fat body over all the other options.