'Unexpected' & 'Fat Girl Love Story': Two Poems by Jessica Minyard

UNEXPECTED

Unexpected, the three positive tests, even though I’d been sick for a week; even though I didn’t bleed anymore. This ploughed field would finally sprout; this big body would only get bigger; big belly, big breasts; would anyone even know; I want them to know, to wonder, but girls are not supposed to want to grow larger; to desire to spread beyond the societal confines of this fleshy vessel. A tiny seed hidden inside; so small, so vulnerable, so insidious; a creeper vine, breaking through concrete, rearranging all the pieces.

I pick the petals off a flower

I love you

I love you not

I love you

I love you not

I love you

Your father will kiss that spot just below my belly button, still round, but not swelling. He can’t feel you yet, but I know you’re there; suspended in the hollow of my distended abdomen, tethered together by a bloody cord.

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FAT GIRL LOVE STORY

you asked me why

I didn’t believe you

when you said you loved me

boys like you don’t fall for girls like me

boys with sly smiles

boys with dark eyes

boys with lithe bodies and long-fingered hands that burn like fire

girls with soft bodies

funny girls

sidekick girls

girls with hip and belly rolls

you asked me why

and I couldn’t tell you

because I wanted you to love me

more than I wanted to love myself

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A native Bluegrassian, Jessica Minyard currently lives and works in Kentucky. She has an MFA from Lindenwood University and her short fiction and poetry has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Slink Chunk Press, Capulet Magazine, and is forthcoming in Kaleidotrope. You can find her on Instagram @jessica_minyard and learn more from her website jessicaminyard.com.