I feel skinny today and I don’t mean it
like it probably sounds, so let me explain it to you

you who don’t know what it’s like to feel like me unless…
unless you do in which case I — AM — SORRY because feeling this way

is not a walk in the park
Well maybe it is because a walk in the park can leave me breathless
and I feel breathless a lot just existing, looking

the way I do

But not today
I feel skinny today

Maybe not actually skinny like a movie star on the red carpet
or even a skinny like a movie star that’s supposed to be the funny fat one
where fat should be “fat” because their fat isn’t fat

but like regular person skinny
like a size 8/10 skinny

Like oversized shirt on top of skintight leggings tied up with a bow
a red flannel tied around the waist kind of bow
like maybe I’ll wear a baseball cap and messy bun and it’ll be cute not sloppy
kind of skinny

I feel skinny today like maybe people won’t stare at me as I walk across the parking lot
and whisper to their daughter in the front seat of their SUV

“That’s why I make you play outside.”

I feel skinny today like maybe I’ll go shopping in a store and not online
and I won’t have a small but very real breakdown in the dressing room because

“Why is it so hot in here?”

I feel skinny today like maybe the handful of Skittles I ate a minute ago
doesn’t actually mean anything

other than I like Skittles and skipped breakfast

I feel skinny today like maybe because of the Seattle-in-spring weather or the weekend
the best weekend
with my friends and whiskey and big belly laughs
where my big belly will be the shadow no one can see at night

And I hope you know that when I say I feel skinny today I mean it
like I feel good today, the kind of good that I don’t ever feel
the kind of good that I imagine everyone else feels

every day they wake up and don’t feel like me