The Body They Hated. Poem by Olorunkemi Kareem

They didn't bully me.
They dismantled me.

One word at a time.
One stare.
One snort of laughter
as I walked past
trying to hold my head up
like it didn't already hang in shame.

They didn't say I was ugly.
They said I was too much.
Too big to wear that.
Too big to speak.
Too big to be noticed unless it was to laugh.

I learned early—
my body was a problem
everyone felt entitled to fix
with comments,
with side-eyes,
with silence so loud
it split me open in public.

I hated school.
Not the books.The chairs.
The uniform.
The hallways where I became
a walking target.

My name became a punchline.
My body a curse.
And no one ever said "sorry."
They just said,
"Maybe if you lost a little weight..."

I stopped eating,
thinking maybe I could punish myself
into being worth something.

I'd lie to my own hunger.
Feel dizzy and smile,
like the world was finally
starting to vanish around me.

I counted calories
like prayers.
Each skipped meal
a sick kind of worship
to people who still
never called me beautiful.

I cried into my pillow
so no one would hear.
Not that anyone would've cared.
They all thought fat girls were just dramaticI thought about death
like a doorway.
Like a bath I could sink into
and finally feel clean.

I pictured it.
A room.
A rope.
A note that just said:
"You win."

And I meant it.

Because what's the point
of breathing
if all the world ever does
is choke you for it?

But I stayed.

Not because I wanted to.
Not because it got better.
It didn't.

I stayed
because something in me refused
to let their hands
be the last ones that touched me.

Now I wake up in the same body—The one they laughed at.
The one I still flinch from.
The one I almost left.

And no,
this isn't some victory poem.
There's no healing yet.
Just survival.

Just one more heartbeat
in the body they hated.
Still here.
Still heavy.
Still hurting.

But still
fucking
here.