Danielle Allshouse
5th grade is when it all began.
Somehow, my body began to change.
Aching sides, aching belly.
Going to school, can't wait for lunch.
Why was I so hungry?
Tormenting boys, pig faces,
Making me sick.
But still I ate.
Sympathetic girls and teachers,
trying to help, never succeeding.
Ballooning up,
Grateful for desks that weren't connected to chairs.
Then, after Christmas, they came.
New seating arrangements,
in honor of new desks.
Desks connected to chairs.
A mini-prison for the chubby girl.
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(c) 1999 Danielle Allshouse. All rights reserved.
Appears in Schools of Verse: An Anthology of Poetry About School, Fall 1999.