"Being invisible becomes force of habit,
because I learned young that I needed
to apologize for the..."
Being invisible becomes force of habit,
because I learned young that I needed
to apologize for the amount of room
I took up.
After all, girls are expected to be small
and soft,
and when you’re not—
Well.
At first, they call it manners.
Elbows in. Legs crossed.
But when you’re twelve years old,
crushing yourself into the furthest corner
of the bus seat, terrified of taking up
more room than everyone else,
then—then you know something’s gone wrong.
See, when you’re a big girl,
the amount of space you take up
and the amount of space you’re allowed
are inversely proportionate.
Which means, the bigger you are
the smaller they expect you to stay.
Which means, the more space you need
the less you are given.
I started making myself smaller
years before I ever lost weight.
And so begins a disappearing act
decades in the making,
passed down from mother to daughter
to daughter, to daughter.
Believe me, we’ve perfected it.
We’ll start with a beautiful best friend.
We’ll call her the magician’s assistant.
It’s her job to make sure that no one
ever looks too close.
With someone like her out in front of you,
you already know that they won’t.
But you come armed with a knack for laughs.
Because magic, after all, is half performance act
and you need, you need, you need
the crowd to laugh.
You think this is the only way
they’re ever going to want to like you.
Us big girls, we think our amount of friends
is directly related to the number of jokes
we can make at our own expense.
We think we have to beat them to it.
If I say it first, then nobody else did.
You make yourself invisible by simple,
calculated
omission.
They made fun of me for the space I took up,
but I guarantee, no one knows
how to blend into the wall
at the back of a room
faster than me.
I can be two inches tall in the time
it takes to close your eyes.
I can back gracefully out
of a conversation you didn’t even know
I was participating in.
Trust me—
I know how to be small better
than the tiniest girl you’ve ever seen.
I had to be.
But I’m not small anymore,
no matter what size you see me
Because I decided to take up space.
There is no one who gives me room,
I demand it.
I deserve to.
I’ve got all this reach, and every inch
belongs to me.
Because see, there’s one more step
in the magic act.
You can be invisible long as you want,
but you can’t stay that way.
The audience only claps
after you bring yourself back.
And I brought myself back.
”- THE DISAPPEARING ACT, by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
