• Pastor: Now, according to a few passages in the bible, homosexuality is a sin.
• Couple of older males in the audience: Amen!
• Pastor: Now, wait, I'm not finished.
• Pastor: You know what else the bible defines as a sin? Divorce.
• -uncomfortable silence-
• Pastor: There are countless passages that talk about how divorce is wrong, and that there are consequences to getting a divorce, such as the wife should be stoned.
• Pastor: Yet, I witnessed a divorce just this morning. And I gotta tell you, it was heartbreaking, but I definitely didn't attempt to throw rocks at the wife, even though she was the one who filed for divorce.
• Pastor: We choose to overlook the consequences of divorce because time has proven that they're inhumane and cruel.
• Pastor: The bible doesn't say anything about the consequences of a homosexual lifestyle. Yet, we seem to be spearheading a campaign to ruin the lives of people we don't even know.
• -the pastor shifts a few notes around-
• Pastor: The bible states to love thy neighbor. That's it. There are no other rules or restrictions to that passage.
• Pastor: So, we as a church family have to support equality with a smile on our face. THAT is the true Christian way.

1.
I say, ‘I am fat.’
He says ‘No, you are beautiful.’
I wonder why I cannot be both.
He kisses me
hard.

2.
My college theater professor once told me
that despite my talent,
I would never be cast as a romantic lead.
We do plays that involve singing animals
and children with the ability to fly,
but apparently no one
has enough willing suspension of disbelief
to go with anyone loving a fat girl.
I daydream regularly
about fucking my boyfriend vigorously on his front lawn.

3.
On the mornings I do not feel pretty,
while he is still asleep,
I sit on the floor and check the pockets of his skinny jeans for motive,
for a punchline,
for other girls’ phone numbers.

4.
When we hold hands in public,
I wonder if he notices the looks —
like he is handling a parade balloon on a crowded sidewalk;
if he notices that my hands are now made of rope.

5.
Dear Cosmo: Fuck you.
I will not take sex tips from you
on how to please a man you think I do not deserve.

6.
He tells me he loves me with the lights on.

7.
I can cup his hip bone in my hand,
feel his ribs without pressing very hard at all.
He does not believe me when I tell him he is beautiful.
Sometimes I fear the day he does will be the day he leaves.

8.
The cute hipster girl at the coffee shop
assumes we are just friends
and flirts over the counter.
I spend the next two weeks
mentally replacing myself with her
in all of our photographs.
When I admit this to him
we spend the evening taking new photos together.
He will not let me delete a single one of them.

9.
The phrase “Big girls need love too” can die in a fire.
Fucking me does not require an asterisk.
Loving me is not a fetish.
Finding me beautiful is not a novelty.
I am not a fucking novelty.

10.
I say, ‘I am fat.’
He says, ‘No. You are so much more’,
and kisses me
hard.