{Originally Published on Secret Agent Mama}

Oh fiery colors, how short your stay,
Merrily tantalizing my sense of sight.
Against the blue sky, as if to blaze the way,
Towards the promise of a new day, bright.

It is in autumn that I reflect the most,
The end of the year spinning my mind around.
Like the trees that wait again to host,
My thoughts pause to absorb the sound.

Through the standstill, I look forward and back,
Considering past, dreams turn to a future of hope.
I wonder: Are the trees hopeful while they lack?
Or have they just found a way to cope?

My mind it is filled with worry and doubt.
Though my heart, a hopeful tree, dreams about.

Originally Published on Dutch Blitz

I was a “big girl” growing up.

I was not comfortable in this body of mine. Yes, it was my body, but I felt as though it did not belong to me. I struggled with the fact that friends of mine could eat McDonald’s, and candy, and wear skinny acid-washed jeans. I would hang with them and curse my chubby thighs and flabby arms. I would shake my fist and silently scream, “It’s not FAIR!”

I resigned myself to the fact that I was destined to be BIG. My friends had flat stomachs and no inner thigh to speak of and it was so foreign to me. My thighs rubbed together as I walked and would get red from the friction.

There were a couple of stints where I got skinny. Because I did not eat. I remember when I was in grade eleven, I ran into an old friend from out of town. She praised me with those words I longed to hear. “You are so SKINNY!” And I told her (innocently) that I had not eaten in forty-eight hours.

That would be TWO DAYS.

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