The Next Step

Some of us want fat people, especially fat women, to "fit in" and be part of the society in which they live. Some of us want to be part of/a society or place in which we don't have to worry about "fitting in." Or perhaps a place in which mostly fat people live.

I wrote last night about celebrating the 30th anniversary of the book Shadow on a Tightrope. We celebrate the first strong voicing of the idea that we shouldn't have to conform to anyone else's image of what we are supposed to look like.

And today, and now..

We take another step.

We want to be liked, even celebrated for what we are and what we look like. In many poems in Fat Poets Speak (2): Living and Loving Fatly, we speak of our curves, our bellies, our chins, our thighs. We want to teach the world how to fall in love with fat/fatness/fatting.

We dream more than equality.

We dream acknowledgment and appreciation.