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Some mornings my body wakes up before I do.
Not in the alarm clock way
but in the way my thighs slide against each other
warm and familiar under soft cotton sheets.
In the way my belly shifts when I roll to the side
like it’s nesting into itself.
Those small movements feel like the body saying
“I’m here. I’ve been here. Are you coming back to me today
or are you going to abandon me again in your head?”
I used to leave my body a lot.
Like it was a house I was embarrassed to be seen living in.
I remember being twelve in a department store
under those violent fluorescent lights
in a dressing room that smelled like dust, perfume, and old carpet.
My mother handed me a pair of jeans
two sizes too small because the number mattered more than the fit.
I pulled and hopped and forced the denim over my hips
felt the button bite into my stomach
and I stood there, blue light in the mirror,
holding my breath until my face went pink.
“How they fit?” she called through the door.
I lied.
Like a good fat child taught to negotiate with fabric.
“They’re fine.”
They were not fine.
My skin felt like it was begging for mercy.
Thighs squeezed tight, belly trapped, breath shallow.
I learned that day that discomfort was supposed to be a normal tax
for walking through this world in a body like mine.
Beauty as suffocation.
Femininity as compression.
Survival as shrink yourself quietly.
For years I dressed like a witness protection version of myself.
Big hoodies in heavy fabrics that swallowed my shape
jeans that cut into my waist
bras that left red imprints like warning signs on my shoulders.
I thought of it as “presentable”
but really it was costume.
Cloth as apology.
If I could just flatten enough, blur enough,
maybe nobody would say the thing I was already screaming at myself.
What nobody told me was that fabric remembers.
That your skin holds grudges.
That the body will always tell on you
no matter how smooth your words come out.
Because there were other memories too.
My first taste of fat joy came in secret.
I was nineteen, broke, and very gay
in a tiny studio with bad plumbing and sunlight that blessed me
for about twenty minutes every afternoon.
I had found a thrifted dress in a bin for three dollars
soft jersey cotton, black with tiny white stars
the kind of stretchy that does not argue with your belly
it just says, “Come as you are.”
It wasn’t “for” my gender.
It wasn’t “for” my size.
Which is exactly why I wanted it.
I remember pulling it over my head
the fabric sliding down my back like a long kind sigh
catching briefly on my shoulders
then pouring itself over my chest, my waist, my hips.
No zipper. No struggle.
Just gravity and softness doing their quiet work.
I stood in front of the mirror
barefoot on warped hardwood
and for a second I saw myself not as a problem
but as a person.
My arms thick and tender,
belly rounding forward like it trusted the air to hold it,
thighs pressed together in an unbothered communion.
I twirled once, awkward, laughing at myself
the hem grazing my knees, skimming my calves.
The dress moved with me like it had been waiting.
That was the first time clothing ever felt like a hug
instead of a trap.
I wore it alone in that apartment
swaying to music on low volume so the neighbors wouldn’t complain.
It was just me and my softness and a cheap fan rattling in the window.
I remember the sweat beading at the back of my neck
the air smelling faintly of frying onions from next door
my own scent of shea butter and laundry detergent.
My body felt loud and gentle at once.
I didn’t have the language yet for gender fluidity
or queer embodiment or fat liberation.
What I had was my skin saying:
“Listen. This is the truth. You feel good.”
That was the body speaking before the mind could write an essay about it.
Here is the Kabal Turn:
At some point I realized I was not dressing to hide my shame.
I was dressing to keep my shame comfortable.
I kept putting it in clothes that hurt
because that pain was familiar.
Restriction felt like proof that I was doing something about myself.
If the waistband dug in, that meant I still had control.
If the shapewear rolled down and carved a line across my middle
I could tell myself I was at least trying to deserve the space I took up.
But the body is patient.
It will wait you out.
That little nineteen-year-old in the thrifted dress
kept knocking on the door of my memory
every time I squeezed into a pair of “aspirational” pants.
Every time I walked into a room and sucked my stomach in
until my lungs filed a complaint.
One day the knocking got too loud.
I was in Target, of all holy places,
standing in the men’s section holding a 3XL sweatshirt.
Soft fleece, the color of wet clay after rain.
I remember rubbing the inside of the sleeve between my fingers
the fuzz warm and plush
the kind of softness that makes you think of childhood naps on the couch.
I put it on right there over my t shirt
felt the weight settle on my shoulders
felt the fabric fall loose over my belly
and for the first time in a long time
I exhaled without ordering myself to.
It wasn’t cute in the way the world sells cute.
It was gentle.
It was kind.
It was big enough.
I caught my reflection in one of those crooked side mirrors
and I saw something that startled me.
I looked… at ease.
Not posed.
Not braced for impact.
Just a Black queer body in an oversized sweatshirt
looking like the couch I always want to nap on.
And I thought, with a little laugh in my throat,
“Oh. So this is allowed?”
That question cracked something open.
If comfort is allowed
what else have I been told I couldn’t have?
What if taking up space isn’t a crime
but a form of accurate description?
What if my softness is not a failure of discipline
but a record of survival?
I started building a wardrobe like I was decorating a home
instead of staging a crime scene.
Wide leg pants that don’t fight my thighs
cotton and linen that let my skin breathe
bras that don’t dig a canyon into my shoulders
crop tops that let my belly feel wind
silky shorts that slide against my legs with a quiet “yes.”
I am learning to ask:
Can I sit in this?
Can I laugh hard in this?
Can I eat in this and still feel my ribs expand without apology?
Can I run across the street to catch the bus
and not feel my clothes betray me?
Fat joy, for me, is very practical.
It is the exact moment you unbutton your jeans
at the restaurant table and decide not to rebutton them
no matter who notices.
It is choosing the bigger size because you want room to stretch
not because you “gave up.”
It is the sound your thighs make in the summer
that soft whispery friction
and instead of judging it you think,
“Listen to us living.”
Being in a Black queer body means people are always trying to read me
like I’m a sign they forgot how to pronounce.
They look for clues in my clothes.
Is that shirt “masculine” enough
is that dress “feminine” enough
is that belly “disciplined” enough?
But I am not an answer key.
I am a whole essay question.
Some days I am in a sports bra and loose shorts
skin glistening with coconut oil
the air touching every part of me like a secret.
Some days I am in a flowy dress with pockets
gold hoops swinging, beard soft under my fingertips.
Every version is real.
Every outfit is a thesis about who I love
and how I choose to be held by the fabrics I put on my back.
I am still healing from the dressing room years.
There are mirrors I avoid.
There are photos I cannot yet look at without flinching.
There are days when I forget this body is my first home
and start treating it like a storage unit for old pain.
But lately, my body has been louder than my shame.
The ache in my feet when I try to wear “respectable” shoes
that are too narrow.
The dizziness when I lace myself into clothes
that demand shallow breathing.
The little sigh of relief when I change into something soft
and my shoulders drop half an inch.
The body tells the truth.
Sometimes in the language of rashes where the fabric is hostile.
Sometimes in the language of that full belly laugh
that only comes when you are not worried about how you look laughing.
Sometimes in the language of simple quiet
when you finally sit down in an outfit that does not punish you for sitting.
If there is a lesson here
it is small and tender and unfinished.
I am learning to let my clothes love me back.
To choose fabrics that feel like softness I once believed I did not deserve.
To treat my fatness not as an enemy
but as a record of every time I chose living over disappearing.
To walk through the world as if my body is not a mistake
but a well furnished room.
Tonight I will peel off whatever I wore today
feel the breeze from the window brush my bare stomach
hear the quiet rub of my thighs as I walk to the bed.
I will slide into a worn cotton t shirt
the kind that knows the exact shape of my shoulders
and lay down, heavy and holy on these sheets.
My body will settle, soft and sure.
I will feel the mattress answering my weight
no hesitation, no protest.
And for a moment before sleep comes
I will listen to my own breathing rise and fall
and let myself believe that this sound
has always been enough.