“Originally published on Everyday Feminism.”
Having a body that differs from society’s beauty standards is no walk in the park.
Anyone with thunder thighs can attest to that. They garner unwanted attention; they’re disrespected in foul ways.
But it isn’t all bad.
Watch Desireé Dallagiacomo reflect on the attention, the abuse, and the generosity that her thighs have witnessed in this slam poem.
With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism
Transcript
My thighs say “thunderous.” My thighs say “too fat for skinny jeans,” say “wide,” say “open.”
My thighs say “cellulite,” say “bad tattoo,” say “stretch mark,” say “pockmark,” say “ingrown hair.”
My thighs feel upset because you only offered one bite of your Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. My thighs say “More! Please.” More room, more beat, dry.
My thighs can dance all night. My thighs want your thighs to work a little bit harder. My thighs may or may not want to fuck some of the people in this room right now. My thighs say, “What the fuck is a thigh gap?”
My thighs are always the elephant in the dressing room. My thighs hate Urban Outfitters, hate Banana Republic, hate fucking American Apparel, love the one pair of jeans we wear four times a week because they’re the ones that fit us right.
My thighs hope your thighs have a great day. My thighs want you to stop calling this body “soft fruit.” My thighs say, “Feminism, bitch!” My thighs say we have always been the tattle-tale of the androgynous, cannot pull the feminine out of us.
My thighs make a mockery of shorts, stay spilling over at the everything’s seam. My thighs say, “We don’t want your praise, man on the street corner, man in the parking garage, man in Walgreen’s while we’re buying tampons.”
My thighs say we are every man’s wet dream, even when we beg not to be. When we close like locked jaw. When we ask nicely. When we beg him to stop. When we never ask for your eyes, or your hands, or your mouth.
My thighs know bruise, beckon. They know quake, crave. My thighs have been shame, fear; still are, most days. My thighs know to tighten, when to stop all the space taking up.
My thighs know empty. All we do is doorway for this body’s ability to woman. We have always been this. Access of this balancing act of woman. Do we make you uncomfortable? Is this too much praise, gospel of this body? We don’t know small. Our everything is too big, monstrous, sturdy.
We stay the stilts that carry this woman body. Armor. The pillars for this heart, this everything woman.
My thighs say you don’t know shit about envelop. Coil through the quiver. Pull the love into you like we do.
My thighs say, “Leave the lights on.” We spent a lifetime hiding.
Shake out of this shame. We are the ruthless twins. The too strong to not run toward everything light. My thighs say don’t tell a shit about what we say, about this body, this heavy body.
It is light. It is light, it is ours. We, gatekeepers. We, welcome committee. My thighs say, “Come into this,” when we say, “This is ours. All of this: ours.”
Desireé Dallagiacomo is a 24-year old slam poet from New Orleans. Desireé teaches performance and writing workshops with the Recovery School District, Centre for the Arts, and WordPlay Teen Writing Project. She is studying creative writing at the University of New Orleans, where she is the sole recipient of the Ryan Chigazola Poetry Scholarship. She is the 2013 Southwest Shootout Regional Slam Champion and she has competed in multiple national and international poetry slams. Her work can be found in The Allen Review, Ampersand Journal, Ellipsis, Tandem, Word Dance, and other publications.