Joanna George

Thunder thighs

When my boyfriend decided to get me gym pants for my birthday,

Somehow his raised eyebrows forced an explanation

how only extras of largeness would accommodate my thighs.

Don’t worry my thighs can hold up anything, I assure him, again.

And I let my thighs jingle like thunder,

as I walk across him in my shorts.

Oh! They say it’s an aftermath of jinxed hormones

that lost their right proportions.

PCOD-Not Healthy-not fertile-not feminine enough,

A hundred eyes of objection,

A thousand and one remedies and another list of workouts and pills,

too many misconceptions and mis-proportions from head to toe.

I too have spend my days scrubbing off - that cellulite, jumping off – that stretch marks,

trying to accommodate my thighs in an L.

Lately in the shadow of life tumbling without warning,

I began to see how my thighs boom and roar not needing a validation.

While my mirror strikes my thunder thighs these days,

I imagine the ancient Amazon women,

strength and might, holding up an entire generation within.

Ha! I no longer fight them – my thunder thighs,

I fight with them, for my PCOD reversal,

Where I need them for every resistance I hold.

Photograph

This time, when I sent the picture,

traditionally clad in a saree, showing off the curves

with my hair tied to a bun and decorated with flowers

I made sure, my arms were oozing out

visibly from the edges of the sleeveless blouse,

unlike the older days where I hid them

beneath the swell of my dupattas or in the hollow of a long sleeve.

“You look pretty, but focus on slimming down that flab on your body.” he said

And I could only wonder how beauty was favored in the soft molehills of breasts

and repulsed when on other parts of the same body

There I decide to let go off my hands from him,

Who could not think of all the spaces – spaciously spread for smothering by kisses,

Joanna George (She/Her) writes from Pondicherry, India. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Parentheses Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Isele magazine, Honey Literary, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, West Trestle Review, Lumiere Review, Paddler Press and others. She tweets at j_leaseofhope