Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

by Roxane Gay

Normally, I force myself to feel attraction to someone who expresses interest in me. It’s mortifying to admit that, but it’s also the truth. I doubt I am alone in this. I often think, Maybe this is my last chance, my only chance. I better make it work.

I am also plagued by this idea that because I’m not a slender supermodel, I really have no business having standards. Who am I to judge someone whose opening salvo is “hi u doing?”

It is hard to ask for what I want and need and deserve and so I don’t. I act like everything is always fine, and it’s not fair to me or anyone else.

I no longer want to believe I deserve nothing better than mediocrity or downright shoddy treatment. I am trying to believe this with every fiber of my being.

Do my boundaries exist if I don’t voice them? Can people not see my body, the mass of it, as one very big boundary? Do they not know how much effort went into this?

Words cannot convey. I sobbed because I was angry at myself, at the event organizers and their lack of forethought. I sobbed because the world cannot accommodate a body like mine and because I hate being confronted by my limitations and because I felt so utterly alone and because I no longer need the layers of protection I built around myself but pulling those layers back is harder than I could have ever imagined.

of others, how my body dares to take up too much space, and how I dare to be confident, how I dare to use my voice, how I dare to believe in the value of my voice both in spite of and because of my body.

I hate going to the doctor because they seem wholly unwilling to follow the Hippocratic oath when it comes to treating obese patients.

A different day has come, though. I flinch less and less when I am touched. I don’t always see gentleness as the calm before the storm because, more often than not, I can trust that no storm is coming. I harbor less hatred toward myself. I try to forgive myself for my trespasses.

You can do that when you’re twenty, but when you’re forty, the body basically says, “Get a grip. Have a seat. Eat some vegetables and take your vitamins.”

was that part of healing is taking care of your body and learning how to have a humane relationship with your body.

It has shown me that being a woman of size, the phrase I use to discreetly inform others of my body in a way that offers a semblance of dignity, is as much a part of my identity, and has been for at least twenty years, as any other part of my identity.

body. This body is resilient. It can endure all kinds of things. My body offers me the power of presence. My body is powerful.

That I have to ask myself these questions shows me a fraction of the questions people with disabilities must ask to be out in the world. It shows me just how much I take for granted, how much we all take for granted when we are able-bodied.

I am trying to undo all the hateful things I tell myself. I am trying to find ways to hold my head high when I walk into a room, and to stare right back when people stare at me.

a woman doing the best she can to love well and be loved well, to live well and be human and good.

I will never forgive the boys who raped me and I am a thousand percent comfortable with that because forgiving them will not free me from anything.

I no longer need the body fortress I built. I need to tear down some of the walls, and I need to tear down those walls for me and me alone, no matter what good may come of that demolition. I think of it as undestroying myself.

Writing this book is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. To lay myself so vulnerable has not been an easy thing. To face myself and what living in my body has been like has not been an easy thing, but I wrote this book because it felt necessary. In writing this memoir of my body, in telling you these truths about my body, I am sharing my truth and mine alone. I understand if that truth is not something you want to hear. The truth makes me uncomfortable too. But I am also saying, here is my heart, what’s left of it. Here I am showing you the ferocity of my hunger. Here I am, finally freeing myself to be vulnerable and terribly human. Here I am, reveling in that freedom. Here. See what I hunger for and what my truth has allowed me to create.