Sex, Kink, and the Erotic: “FUPA” by Anonymous

FUPA 

FIRST 

The first time I’m given an antipsychotic I’m actively starving
myself. The sexual tension 

between slicing my skin open and the medicine is thicker than a
snicker, but all anyone cares 

about is that we can’t afford a funeral. 

No me vengas con [redacted racist idiom], de engordar, que tu
estas bien rellenita 

she says. 

My head is swimming in J’adore, the office reeks of it. I wonder
who could ever adore this 

expanse if it got any bigger. I think about the universe expanding
and deserts growing while she 

fills out paperwork. Shrinking forests come to mind,     I resolve to
be harder on 

my body than I had been before. Desserts grow, forests shrink. The
taught-ness of hip bones  

on a body such as mine lures me into determined calculations: 800 can
be 500 can be 250 so easily. 

My mind flashes to Angelina’s tattoo, bee-stung-Latin drowning
out the la doctora’s Spanglish: 

quod me nutrit, me destruit. Quod me nutrit, me destruit. Quod me
nutrit, me  destruit. Me 

destruit.      Me. 

UNDERWEAR 

There’s a joke on Frasier that makes me giggle even though maybe
it shouldn’t. Martin, Frasier’s 

working-class dad, is talking about his girlfriend taking her sisters
shopping. He says they’re 

shopping for foundation pieces. Niles, or maybe Frasier, interjects
with a quip along the lines of 

“they call them undergarments now,” and Martin retorts, "not these
you don’t." 

I got my first faja colombiana at 14, to wear to a school dance.
Mom made my dress, called me 

statuesque, took a picture of me between my besties—a literal
vogue model and a proper 

anorexic— 

      double stuffed deluxe. 

One night, twelve years later, I took the bus to the ER because I
was having these stabbing pains 

in my abdomen. Two nurses helped me out of three girdles and a
butt shaper with padding. They 

made me take off my bra. I was a scared marshmallow, sandwiched
between two hospital 

smocks. I was alone and uncontained. Two men wheeled me into
the gallery. Thank God for the 

sedatives. They say the last thing I said before passing out in the
OR was “please, don’t butcher 

me. I’m still a virgin.” 

PUSSY 

The first time my husband tries to go down on me, my body
becomes a sequoia. My knees 

spread roots from patella to pussy, transpiration on my lashes. His
voice a rumble near the forest 

floor, my mouth bark. He mists my neck with reassurance, cradles
me until my branches ease to 

flesh again. We try again. And again. We try many times before I
can disarticulate eat from 

eating from fat from fat. We try again and again until each
indentation I’ve pressed into my body 

returns to me. 

Everything compressed, blooming; everything strained unhinging; 

everything, everythanging. Crown, and 

AH.