The First Time I Asked For A Seatbelt Extender

Currently, I weigh about 100+ pounds over what many doctors would name my ‘goal weight’ to be, particularly as a petite woman. This is, undoubtedly, a strange way to begin an abstract but, because of where my body hug-holds its excess folds, there are some folks who flinch at my words when I claim my own fatness. My body is sculpted specially by my multiple chronic illnesses—its shape in constant flux, which makes my grasp of my own identity a bit slippery and warps my experiences of time. This poem explores these ideas—opening with storytelling the uncomfortable bits and pieces of my first time asking for a seatbelt extender and moving into the slippery, the time-distortion, the not-quite-reality where I envision a plane (and a world) designed for the illest and fattest of us, which would only benefit us all.