Hunger

It always happened so fast,

It was just like one of the past times.

Knew it wouldn’t be one of the last times.

Belly so hungry,

appetite so vast.

Not so much for knowledge,

but for any fix that stopped me from being harassed.

What box to put me in,

already labelled as outcast,

typecast me for a role I couldn’t play----- 

and even I surpassed,

the lengths that I thought I’d go too,

just to get through

each wretched high school day.

I was meticulous not to broadcast,

that on the forecast

for the next couple of years,

I’d starve, binge and purge,

as to urge,

there wasn’t a space for this black body 

to exist with unconditional safety. 

The media told me 

If I could get very, very small,

And not take up too much space at all---

That maybe the world would be a little bit kinder to me?

A little bit gentler to me?

Maybe, then, I wouldn’t constantly be put on blast,

Maybe, then, I wouldn’t constantly fear being chosen last.

Because then I might be better to fit the mold,

On what I had been sold.

Was my bulimia a bi- product of oppression?

Or a symptom of my depression?

Or was it simply a painful expression,

of all the trauma in my body

that my heart and brain could not yet name.

I never thought I’d discuss it without shame,

‘I am bulimic; I was bulimic’

But, I overcame.

Not all at once.

Over time.

Slowly, painfully, heartbreakingly, beautifully.

Until I woke up one morning,

Both completely unaware and aware,

I had answered my own prayer;

I was healing

and feeling

my way back to my soul;

my only and wonderfully made role.

Why should I hide?

Why should I be denied?

The safety and the space,

to share.

The safety and the space,

for white people to care.

Look at this face; my face,

Look at my race; creamy rich melanin,

and let it sink in,

that sometimes just existing feels like a sin.

I may have been dying trying to become thin,

But, do you know what was nourished?

A black woman embracing living in her own skin.

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Watch out. Mama’s Full.