Despertar

externe

These scars didn't come from that, and they didn't come from that, either. I got them when I was twenty-one years old, just coming to terms with the fact that there was no room in my imaginary romance for weakness. I was visiting, he was out someplace, I tripped and broke the skin along my forearm on the sharp edges of a broken whisky bottle on his desk. I should have gotten stitches, but I knew he didn't give a shit big enough to see me through any medical ordeal, so, while he was gone, I cleaned the intensely bleeding wound and pulled the skin together with a piece of industrial-strength packing tape. I hid it under the sleeve of a hoodie. We fucked with our clothes on. He never knew the difference.

*

I finally look like my mother. When I'm coming up on a mirror, from twenty paces away I am an exact replica. A few steps closer, and my lighter skin gives me away. Inches from the mirror, I'm the poor man's version with zittier skin.

I was the ugliest duckling in the pond, and now I'm a perfectly passable swan. I've grown pretty enough that, if I miss my bus or train by a few seconds, the driver will slow and reopen the doors so I can hop on; I'm not pretty enough that the other women on board, already late for work, resent me for it.

Male motorists will let me cross against the light just so they can watch my behind till I reach the other side. I left work early on Tuesday, at what turned out to be Peak Porch Loitering Hour, and the street filled with a cacaphony of honking horns and leering drivers, yelling at me from truck windows, egging each other on to create a mile-long chain of catcalls. I collected six business cards from yard workers, bail bondsmen.

"But I don't know anyone in jail."

"That's all right. My personal number is on there, too."

*

Sometimes, when I see a really fat woman on the street, I think, if I ever get that fat, I'll kill myself.

Then I want to kill myself anyway, for being that shallow.

*

I'm not too thin anymore.

On the one hand, this is an incredible relief to my parents, my grandmothers, my brother and, to some extent, me. At the time, it felt, forgive the cliche, like being in control: I had a tiny appetite, contained curves, hips that slid easily into size zeroes borrowed from a slim Asian girlfriend. Now, when I look back at the photographic evidence, I see that I didn't even look like a real person. When people constantly referred to me as "the skinny girl," it wasn't a term of endearment; it was the natural reaction to the freakish attribute that defined my appearance. Ten pounds ago, I never would have attracted Justin, who likes his hands full. That, in itself, is reason enough to be happy in twos.

On the other hand, twos? I've never fit comfortably into a two in my life. The first time I had to struggle into a pair of zeroes, cords that used to fit me just perfectly, the frustration almost brought tears to my eyes. Once I finally got them buttoned, I stood in front of the mirror for solidly twenty minutes, despising my own fatness.

I can't get dressed in front of people or have sex with the lights on, but I don't down entire bags of Oreos and then barf them up, either. So I feel okay about this leftover bit of tension. I think I always want to feel like I could be thinner.

*

A decent Brazilian in San Francisco costs thirty dollars more than one in the District, but it is worth it. Six hours later, my whole anterior is humming.

They always ask if I have a boyfriend. I always say yes, even if it isn't true. I always want them to feel like their work is on display.

*

My nose is too big. My hair is too short. I should bleach the hair on my arms and look into electrolysis for the rest of it. The soles of my feet look like I walked barefoot through Hell without lotioning first. My summertime coloring is displeasingly dark and uneven. I haven't yet found the facial cleanser that eradicates these stray bumps around my hairline. My thighs are always reddish from the heat of my laptop. When I smile too widely, my cheeks take on a Santa Clausish roundness. When I don't smile widely enough, my whole face looks thin and horsey, like Sarah Jessica Parker's. I'm an inch too tall and I'll never be a model because of my high hip-to-breast ratio.

Overall, I'd rate myself a seven-point-three. A nine, with the lights off.