Disclaimer: All rights go to the author, Lisi Harrison, who faithfully publishes my not-so-secret guilty pleasure(and Dylan Marvil, of course).

Maybe, Maybe Not Fat

I never said there was anything wrong with food.

There isn't. I love food.

It warms me up, turns me round, and makes me smile

Gushing chocolate, frothy vanilla slurps, and golden pizza grease...

Yum, yum, yum all the way through.

I never said there was anything wrong with food.

But there's a hell of a lot of things wrong with me.

A lot of me.

Much too much of always-eating me

I'm just fat

Yeah, yeah

I know I'm not a complete blubbery blob monster

Sliding OCD to a tilt as I tromp down one corner of the building

I think that's what the Pretty Committee guesses I mean

When I trade my Hershey bars for Nutrigrain

But honestly I get that Fat Camp was a bit of a stretch

And compared to the LBRs at my school

Fat is a strong word

But when I compare me

To Queen Massie

And the rest of the effortlessly slim and toned PC

Fat, flabby, and all the Fs in the book

Match me spot-on

Do you know what its like

Being the fiercely red-haired, red-faced fat girl

Out of them?

All either sporting rose cream, Pilates abs

Or boasting pencil-thin thighs by the pool

These tiny butted, Gawd graced friends of mine

Are physically flawless

Boy-melting moguls

That make me

Look like a salami stick

Pretending be a rose stem

And they don't get it!

How can they get it

When they don't have to try?

"Dylan! Stop whining!"

"Lay off the diet, Dyl, and have some fun."

"For the hundreth time, YOU'RE NOT FAT!"

Don't they see the huuuge difference between

My arm beside Claire's?

My bathing suit bod next to Massie's?

My calves compared to Kristen's?

We and I both know that they're not blind.

They wonder why I insist to choke down bran

When they make me feel like an ogre

At Friday Night Sleepovers, most of the time its only me

Scooping a finger through the whipped cream

As amber eyes flash wide horror

Black-haired beauties slowly shake their heads

Dylan, Dylan, Dylan

And I don't even know what I want sometimes

When I let my sisters eat my ice cream.

A thing to do, a thing to be?

Maybe a HAWT boyfriend

Who looks at me like I'm the best

Instead of Shrek.

Or it could be that

I just want to be more of a Massie

More fitting of the Pretty Committee

A ten among tens

Instead a pathetic seven

Of course, Massie being the alpha doesn't bug me

Much

But I could do without her

"Thank Gawd she's put down the popcorn" glances

And the way she sometimes scans me up and down

Red lights zip, zip over the bar code

Searches herself, then mutely back to me

Nods, smiles, and flounces ahead.

As if to say,

"Dylan's looks bloated and blotchy again.

Glad to be me, a total ten and skinny."

So that might not be what she really thinks.

So what.

Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm fat

Maybe I'm not.

But those looks,

Alicia's loop-da-loop eye rolls,

Claire's shy glances from me to her gummies,

And Kristen's offers to teach me "calorie-burning" soccer

Don't help me chew and swallow

The food I love

Any easier.