---

---

I am a big girl

When they laughed me out of our childhood clubhouse because “no girls allowed,” I felt my girl rain down the sides of my face while they watched my open-tooth smile fall out of place and erased every trace of me from our secret play space.

I tried and tried to secret-hand-shake my way back inside ‘til mom and dad pulled me aside and said, ‘Paige. Be a big girl.’

So I pressed my lips together, bit down on my tongue until I tasted metal, and squeezed my eyes shut tight, tight, tight enough to fight back tears like those little boys’ fears of my cooties couldn’t crush me 

because 

I am a big girl

So big so soon I had to squeeze into my sisters’ hand-me-down shoes with my too-long, too-wide feet, and with their once-new-now-mine t-shirts stretched across my double-d chest those still-so-little boys now liked me best, and the rest of me grew too, but nobody really knew what to do with a child becoming woman by way of exploding out of her own skin.

So I spent big years buying into big girl bullshit like 

Big girl won’t ever be beautiful like

Big girl you talk too much like 

Big girl don’t want to eat like that like

Big girl he won’t ever love you like

Big girl be more like your sisters like

Big girl you’re too young like

Big girl you’re too old like

Big girl with the big mouth nobody will believe you like

Big girl with the big boobs we know you wanted it like

Big girl with the big dreams just shut up and settle like

Big girl can you just be any smaller?

But the weight of that big girl be somebody else baggage

couldn’t break me down into bits and pieces

because

I am a big girl

And the world is full of us. 

We are just woke up and beautiful through lashes curled and lipstick bold and every shape, shade, and size in between.

We are big girl cup of coffee to greet the rising sun through bedtime stories when the day is done.

We are sitting tall behind big girl desks leading companies and writing poetry and not just changing the world, we’re making it spin. 

And marching my me-sized feet to this big girl beat means following in the footsteps of any big-mouthed, full-bodied, dream-chasing, grown-ass woman who stopped shrinking no matter who asked them to. 

So I will never apologize for the size of my body, my voice, or even my scars, 

because 

I am a big girl

And the way my big dances rose-red and purple 

across my middle and along my thighs 

and I’m not gonna lie 

these days under my arms and along the sides of my breasts 

could fill me with shame like boys laughing “no girls allowed” filled me with tears, 

but instead I’m filled with love that tastes like blueberry pancakes and bacon in bed on a weekend, and instead I’m filled with hope that looks like a faint pink line whispering maybe this belly can get even bigger, and instead I’m filled with strength from my big-girl, nails-polished, and white-knuckled fist to my bare-skinned bulging biceps that may be buried beneath my big, but still exist.

And I can carry my own big loud load of grown-ass self on my broad bold shoulders without flattening

because

I am a big girl