Bitter Tart / Butter Tart

The hyper-surveillance of self as it relates to what our bodies look like (and how we may make them look a certain way through rigid food and exercise routines) is often disregarded as a very real form of disordered eating or body dysmorphia when it manifests in a fat person. Often spoken about under the guise of simply watching one’s figure, being disciplined, or taking pride in one’s appearance, the motivation to have one’s body take up space in a particular way to appease onlookers is to self-inflict the policing of fat bodies. The endorsement of one’s obsession with achieving a particular bodily aesthetic should not be contingent on this aesthetic being the fatphobic, Eurocentric beauty standard. How might we as fat folks move beyond attaining this endorsement or this scrutiny about our bodies as vessels to be perceived? How might this revelation influence how we view ourselves, both from the onlooker’s perspective and from within? This poem aims to address these two lenses in a piece about the act of eating a simple butter tart.