The air in the sterile white room is full of chemical smells that, strangely, are only present in doctor’s offices. Each breath I take tickles my nose hairs before slithering through my nostrils and soaking into my lungs, and I hate that on top of everything else, even the air is inhabiting me.

You see, I have Dysplasia. Big word, little meaning. Precancerous cells. Big words, big meaning. As the doctor pushes my knees farther and farther apart, I am invaded by metal tools and poking devices just as I am occupied by mutated cells. But I can only stare at the photos tacked to the popcorn ceiling, hoping that my cervix is not as diseased as they thought.

On the rolling cart, I see a pile of Q-tips stacked neatly next to a nearly empty box of rubber gloves. On the other end of the table is the loop of fire. The doctor hides it from me behind my own legs, carefully trying to disguise the demonic “medicine” she is about to use on me. The burning metal ring is suddenly in her hand and she slowly moves it between my legs. She runs it over the infected cells, cauterizing and killing them. A puff of white smoke wafts toward the ceiling and I smell myself, a combination of flesh and fear from my burning body and the sweat that trickles down my forehead.

Then she is done. I am burnt but I am healed. I am made stronger but I am weakened. These paradoxical truths make me afraid to ask the question I have been rehearsing since I entered the sanitary establishment.

“Will I be able to have kids?”

The doctor tells me she is hopeful. As long as the bad cells don’t grow back, my cervix will heal and a baby will be possible. But the fragile skin is thin now having been cut away by her hands, and I may not be able to carry to full term. She says that the longer I allow myself to heal, the better chance a baby will have.

I heed her advice, but it feels like every twenty eight days another chance is lost, like every egg has potential that is somehow being wasted. Every year, I get older. Waiting. How long do I wait? How long do I wonder? When will I know the answers to the questions that I ask? My heart is ready, and my mind is prepared, but my body. How do I know when my body is ready? It seems healthy and it feels good. But what is inside? Someone please tell me that my scars are healed.

© Tchiki Davis, 2009

[others]

Just yesterday I pushed the growing stack of bills off my slimming stack of ladies magazines, and kablow! Right there on the cover in big bold letters, the magazine told me, “STAY SKINNY”. My first thought was that 65.2% of Americans don’t have any idea what this magazine is talking about since we are already overweight. And my second was, “Fuck them. I look fine just the way I am.” But sadly, my third thought was to look up the page number and find out exactly how to “stay skinny”. Unsurprisingly, the secret was a combination of diet and exercise. Tips, that again can only be blocked out by thick cave walls.

I hope you don’t mind if I speak for us non-cave-dwellers, but personally I’m sick of being told what to do by a bunch of skinny bitches. We are the majority. We have the power, but these days I’m afraid the only way for us to exert our power is to sit on our opponents. Still I wonder, how did so many of us end up as fat asses?

There must be a reason why we are all packing on the pounds. Could it be the dissolution of freedom and commitment that this country and planet once had. Uh… no. Could it be the crippling self-hatred spawned by the media’s idea of perfection? I still don’t think so. Maybe it’s the huge availability and affordability of 2000 calorie, orgasmic meals. Closer. It must be the combination. A dying country and planet inhabited by people who eat happiness at McDonalds because they are crippled by self hatred. Yeah, that about sums it up.

But if we keep sitting on our fat asses, they are just gonna get fatter. Not cause we’re sitting, but because America is force feeding us something akin to butter wrapped in bacon, dipped in chocolate, and the effort it will take to change that into apples and oranges is akin to an triathlon, followed by a boxing match, followed by Forest Gump’s idea of “running”. But until we can change the way America treats its pets (and by pets I mean us), I recommend using those asses to make changes that actually encourage people to be healthy and happy, and not just “skinny”.

© Tchiki Davis, 2009

[others]