And then, one day, not too soon after you meet the dessert sushi guy, you stop biting after twelve. Twelve because it’s what you’ve decided to give yourself. Twelve because when you met the man for dessert sushi at the burger joint near his house, he left after he saw you, left after he called you fat. So now, when you’re out with your friends at Tony’s Place and they order those bacon cheese fries and jalapeño poppers, the same ones you introduced them to, you take twelve bites instead of twenty-four. Twelve bites when you get the promotion at Amazon IT and your brother grills steak at home for you and his wife and his kids. Twelve bites though he serves it with seared asparagus dripping with olive oil and lemon cracked pepper and Himalayan salts. Twelve bites that backfire when he packages the rest for you to take home, and it’s still sitting in on the top shelf of your fridge on that plate he let you borrow. And his wife has been asking for you to return the plate for a week now, but you can’t because you can’t bring yourself to throw out his food, but you also can’t slip more oil and starch and salt down your throat. So you count out six carrots from the fridge instead, and you count them on a clean floral plate. You eat them in halves for a midnight snack. You eat them slowly, and you savor every crunch. And the steak and asparagus and potatoes stay rotting on the borrowed platter in the fridge. You do this because you must. And you must because you don’t remember getting fat; because you didn’t realize you were fat until your friend persuaded you to download Grindr; because a thick-chested man who had written no fats on his profile flirted with you and asked you out and you agreed. But you didn’t know then that no fats meant you. Didn’t know until you met for dessert sushi and he told you that you didn’t look like your picture and he had said no fats and that meant you. And he left you there. And, you went on and bought dessert sushi anyway, the kind with mango and kiwi and raspberries and sweet coconut rice and dripping with coconut cream sauce. But you threw it in the trash because it would only make you fatter. And though you had taken an Uber there, you decided to walk home instead. So now you take twelve bites of the meals you don’t skip because it’s enough to not make people question. For a while, at least. It’s enough to tick the scale lower and lower and lower. And as you start updating your profile picture and weight each week, it’s enough to fill your inbox. You stare at the screen for hours, studying each picture of each man who wants you, and when you crop off your face from the photos and only show your naked chest, their want slips in faster. And while you don’t physically meet men from the app anymore, you did make a new profile after losing the weight. And you post a new faceless photo that shows your new thinning waist. And dessert sushi boy messages you because he doesn’t recognize you, and while you scroll through all the nearby men on Grindr and study each slice of skin they show, you study dessert sushi boy the most. And the messages continue to spill and you don’t answer back and this makes you feel stronger. And when you become annoyed with the growing barrage of strangers’ messages, you write a new bio on your profile that says only message if you’re toned and healthy or i’ll block you. And while this doesn’t quell the incoming messages, it does help you feel less guilty about blocking those who don’t fit the depiction; after all, you’ve been upfront. And it’s not like you don’t see the irony of what you’re doing or the hypocrisy of your words, but this is the culture and you’re tired of trying to change the things that can’t be changed. You’re tired. You’re just so fucking tired. But that moldy tray is still in your fridge and your sister-in-law has stopped asking for it back and you don’t go out with your friends to the bar anymore but you have started going out to the club where the hot men dance beside you and their skin rubs against you and they look and they stare and they press and they say they’ll fuck you in the alley if you ask them to but what’s the fun in that because when dessert sushi boy finds you on the dance floor and asks you to follow him to the bathroom you can say sorry, no fats and turn to dance with the sweaty shirtless muscled guy behind you and you can tell yourself you’re happy you can tell yourself you’re happy while the smoke machine blankets the room and you’re biting the muscled boy’s neck and clawing his back and you can taste the salt on his skin so you just bite harder and the rainbow colored lights blur overhead and the alcohol hits and the floor hits and the rumbling bodies around you feel like those twelve bites and twelve bites is enough because your body is full now isn’t it your body is full now your body is yours now isn’t it—isn’t it—full.

Andrew Romriell is a writer, photographer, and artist. He was the recipient of the 2022 Vandewater Prize in Poetry, and he won first prize for creative nonfiction in the 2021 Utah Original Writing Competition. His work is forthcoming or published in Great River Review, 15 Bytes, Beyond Words, South 85, and elsewhere. When not writing, Andrew can be found drinking far too much coffee or playing hide and seek with his cat. Catch him at ajromriell.com.