Like Me

by Hayley Phelan

It was the kind of thing brands had started posting recently, as if they were moral entities instead of capitalist enterprises, as if they had values beyond customer retention and profit margin.

I’d been training for this, after all; every girl has. Why else do they teach us to hate our bodies, to treat them as expensive machines? Then it’s easy to do whatever you have to do, since you’re not really involved; everything’s happening on the outside, but inside you’re completely untouched.

My mom always said that if she could lose just five pounds, she’d be happy, and she always said it exactly like that, with the just and everything, as if she were haggling over the price of happiness with some unseen overlord.