Love War Stories by Ivelisse Rodriguez

Author:Ivelisse Rodriguez
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781936932283
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2018-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

I gain about two pounds a week.

My mother doesn’t understand why I came home after college, why I didn’t stay in New York, why I seem so unhappy, and ultimately why and how I am gaining so much weight. She works all night, and I have developed a routine. I lay a blanket out on her white couches and spread myself onto the sofa. I note how much space I take up each night. It gives me a sense of power, like I am destroying this person, the one he has created.

I tell my mother it’s normal to gain weight after one leaves college. That the weight will be lost once I really start my life. Since I have been home, I’ve gained fifteen pounds, and she has redecorated the house, put away the pictures of me as a little girl in favor of photos of me when I first entered college—when I was average.

She thinks I don’t know what she is doing, but I don’t need her reminders. All I think about is the person I used to be. She has so much stacked against me to be disappointed by. Every night I roll in my disappointment.

I go to the CVS down the street when my mother closes the door behind her. I calculate how much money will take me through September, how much I can use to feed myself before there is nothing left. I try to get something new every day, so by the end of the summer, I will have eaten every candy bar that lines the shelves of the CVS in Springfield, Massachusetts. Then I will move on to chips, cookies, and hard candy. I like the order of it all. These nights alone on the couch, feeding myself, I know I am safe. My life is in my hands.

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