I lie next to her, fighting with my oversized t-shirt to get comfortable and wonder just what she sees in me. I turn my thoughts to my laptop and stare at a blinking cursor and silently scream… “What do you want from me?” And then my daughter skips down the stairs and peeks her head into my room and asks what am I doing sitting in the dark at 3 am. As she walks away, my thoughts envy her freedom, her purple hair, and her mix-matched Chuck Taylors, because they represent what I am not. And again I am back to wondering. This time focusing on who I use to be, and claim to be, and how “they” truly see me.

Everything in my space seems to want something. Even I want something from myself. All of this chaos, and I have a deadline in the morning that I won’t meet. Stale cigarette butts are spewing out of my makeshift ashtray and even they seem to want something. But what is this “thing”?

The infomercial says it’s body image. By their definition, I am not perfect. My writer friends says it’s sense of self, whatever the hell that means. This reflection staring back at me through my web cam says it’s…well it says nothing. I, on the other hand, have loads of disapproving comments to share.

I don’t feel like going to the shrink that I begged to get a session with, and then rescheduled my initial consult five times to date. I don’t feel like hearing how I tattoo my body to escape the pain, and how I am submissive to fuel my addiction for pain. I don’t want to talk about the detachment and love I have for my mother, or how I see her as fragile, and yet she is the one I dedicate my strength to. I could care less how my past makes for far-fetched stories that are filled with words I hide behind. And I really don’t want to hear about how the years of past molestation and rape have molded me into the eclectic being that I now seek to define. If you ask me I can save my money and self-diagnose.

It’s beginning to storm now. I want nothing more than to run out into the welcoming arms of the rain and wash away this “thing” that’s attached itself to me. I can’t call it sadness, nor can I call it happiness. It’s just there, feeding off of me and trying to force my mind to conform to something, anything…I can feel it washing over me as I sit inside, safe from its grasp. I need the raindrops running down my extra flesh, slipping in between my toes, cleansing my hair, and removing the remnants of my drinking binge from the night before.

The rain doesn’t care that I’m in between sizes, or that I have a split earlobe, or crooked tooth, or 14 tattoos, or dark skin, or curly hair. It won’t manipulate my kindness, take advantage of my weakness, or prey on my moments of blondness. The rain doesn’t care that I work a 9 to 5 that is killing me, or that my BP is high for my age, or that my womb may not be able to procreate. It cares little that I appear to have everything and struggle desperately to obtain nothing. It cares not of me…

According to the infomercial, I care little of me as well because I won’t spend $19.95 to improve my appearance. The doc says I care even less because I won’t stop smoking. And sometimes I could care less. But sometimes, on those rare occasions when I’m “feeling” myself, I think I’m kind of beautiful and not just on the inside. Despite my ‘lil belly and short stature I rather like myself…sometimes.

I can’t say that my family ever drilled it into my head that I needed to be slimmer. Instead they threw side-ways remarks at me about my weight. And then when the inking started, the side-ways innuendos became straight forward. It’s funny now when I think about it, because I use to be very thin, and I remember during that time feeling very fat. When I look at the pictures of how I use to be, I am almost disgusted at the thin thing that stares back at me blankly and silently taunts me.

When I walk into Lane Bryant I get looks like I don’t belong there from the other shoppers, and sometimes the way the clothes fit me seem to add to the ridicule. When I go to the next teeny-bopper store I get looks there as if this too isn’t the place for me. I find myself sucking in my belly just a little more, and praying that my bra doesn’t look as if it’s cutting off circulation in my back or adding to the love handles. I am a wo-man without a country.

For everything that screams at me to be smaller, there is someone else telling me I am perfect the way I am. There’s a doctor who says I am obese by medical definition, a daughter who says I’m pretty, a suitor who calls my fatness thick, a horde of scales whose opinions vary as much as the weather changes, and then me. Depending on what day, what time, or what I am trying to fit into determines how I see myself for the moment.

Then there is location. For every state I have been to, my “image” is received differently. In Atlanta, my size didn’t matter, but what I wore did. In Florida, depending on how close to the beach I got played a factor on how I was accepted. In New York, they were too busy trying to get from point A to B to care. The list goes on and on and on. Throw into that, the type of people I associated with at the time ,and a girl’s head could spin right off her neck.

I’m back to watching the rain and wondering just who is this girl that hides behind the name of Spoken Pandora? I am a little over weight. I have breasts that I am ashamed of because I think they are too big. My ass isn’t the “bubble booty” my nationality has come to admire. I prefer to walk barefooted in red clay, and if it was up to me, I would be inked on over 40% of my body. How I see myself is all that really matters, because ultimately that is what determines how high I hold my head in a crowd of strangers, what ventures I choose to pursue, and how much courage I have to live in a shell that others deem unfit.