Fat Cow

fat cow.

two little words.

four syllables of absolute cruelty.

spat from a mouth that never considered what they might destroy.

perhaps she was twelve.

perhaps she was twenty.

perhaps she was fifty-five and still hearing the same bloody words.

she laughed.

because sometimes that's what you do when someone humiliates you in front of other people.

you laugh.

then you go home.

lock the bathroom door.

and cry.

not pretty tears.

but the kind that leave your face swollen, your chest aching,

and your reflection looking like someone you despise.

she learned to hate the body she lived in.

the belly. the thighs. the rolls. the stretch marks.

she pulled at her skin.

starved herself.

then ate to fill the emptiness.

then hated herself for eating.

she saw fat where others saw beauty.

flaws where others saw curves.

and sometimes the mirror became such a cruel place

that she stopped looking altogether.

body dysmorphia.

a mind that can turn your own reflection into an enemy.

and nobody knew how much she suffered.

because she was funny.

loud.

confident.

the life and soul of the bloody party.

and then came the men.

the attention.

the compliments.

the hands that reached for her.

the strangers who called her beautiful.

and for a little while

she believed them.

because being wanted felt almost like being worthy.

one man.

then another.

then another.

dozens.

hundreds.

names forgotten.

faces blurred.

beds she woke in feeling lonelier than when she arrived.

not because sex was something shameful.

not because a woman should ever apologise for desire.

but because for her

it had stopped being about pleasure.

it had become another way to punish herself.

another desperate attempt to prove

that someone could want a body she had been taught to hate.

she confused being touched with being loved.

being desired with being valued.

being chosen for one night

with being enough.

and sometimes

she gave herself to people who didn't even deserve a conversation.

because somewhere inside that broken little girl

was a belief

that any attention was better than being invisible.

and afterwards

the silence.

the cold sheets.

the tears.

the terrible emptiness of realising

that someone had wanted her body

but had never really seen her.

and the saddest part?

she hadn't seen herself either.

she spent years looking for love in other people's eyes

while refusing to meet her own.

until one day

she stood naked in front of the mirror.

no makeup.

no flattering angles.

no holding her stomach in.

just her.

and she cried.

God, how she cried.

because standing in front of her

was a woman who had spent her entire life

begging to be loved

while treating herself like someone who didn't deserve it.

she saw the thighs that had carried her through heartbreak.

the stomach that had softened with living.

the arms that had held people together

while she was quietly falling apart.

the breasts.

the scars.

the folds.

the beautiful imperfect skin.

and suddenly

she wasn't looking at a fat woman.

she was looking at a woman who had survived.

a woman who had been ridiculed.

rejected.

objectified.

used.

and sometimes had mistaken being used for being loved.

and yet

she was still here.

still breathing.

still capable of tenderness.

still capable of love.

and she realised

the ugliest thing she had ever carried

was never her weight.

it was the shame other people had taught her to feel.

so she reached out

and placed her hand against the mirror.

and for the first time

she didn't ask

who will love me looking like this?

she asked

how could I have been so cruel to someone who needed me so much?

and that

was the moment everything began to change.

not overnight.

not magically.

healing rarely happens like that.

there were still tears.

still difficult mornings.

still days when the old voices came crawling back.

but she stopped looking for her worth in strangers' bedrooms.

stopped apologising for her appetite.

her curves.

her existence.

she learned that desire could be joyful.

that intimacy could be safe.

that her body belonged to her

and nobody had to want it for it to be worthy.

she wore the bikini.

ate the cake.

showed her arms.

laughed with her belly.

and began taking up the space she had spent decades trying to disappear from.

fat cow?

no, darling.

she is a woman.

a gloriously imperfect,

soft,

sensual,

brave,

beautiful woman.

and perhaps the greatest tragedy

wasn't the hundreds of people who had touched her body

without ever knowing her soul.

it was the years she spent believing

their desire was the closest thing she would ever get to love.

because all along

beneath the shame,

behind the tears,

inside the body she had spent a lifetime fighting,

was the most beautiful person

she had never allowed herself to meet.

and this time

when she looked in the mirror

she didn't turn away.

she stayed.

because the greatest love story of her life

wasn't about someone finally choosing her.

it was about the day

she finally

chose herself.

Love from Missy Moo xxx