Be honest, does this make me look fat?

from the monthly pilgrimage to an overpriced store.

Hell is a fitting room with fluorescent lights. Hell is me half-naked in front of the mirror, all the same flesh from different angles. My brain, convinced that my body won’t fit this dress. Hell is the tried and rejected pile of clothes on the floor and the sweaty concoction of seven different perfumes in the air.

art by me.

I would’ve picked a size up had the woman with the perfect proportions stayed off my aisle. Hell was her hands doing one clean grab, and mine doing the long labour. Had i spent any more time going through the hangers, i would’ve found Narnia. So, i settled for an easy-to-reach size. This satin slip dress, carrying the burnout of all the women who’ve tried it on, is now my last hope, as i am its. I think it wishes this long day of fittings would end, that it could just turn threadbare someday and be free of it all.

What i wish for is a body it deserves. I wish i never had to google how much mounjaro costs, and i wish i had the disposable income to afford it. I also wish i knew how to sew. I would turn my pretty bed sheets into 3-piece sets and never have to make another trip to the zudios and the zaras of the world. I wish they let you smoke in here. I am already overwhelming my olfaction with these perfumes. Cinnamon. Fruity. Strong. The one i used in college. And Old Spice. ugh.

This room must be three feet by four, maybe less. What are the exact dimensions needed to make you want to claw your way out? To make you hate yourself efficiently? It’s that. The door has a lock so wonky, it wouldn’t stop a dogged toddler. Every turn i make in here comes with a fresh jumpscare: me from a new angle. One of these turns, i might unlock the door myself and run out aghast, naked and all. And then every pair of eyes in the store gets to do what i have been doing in here, only that would be a worse hell.

There are so many names for it — changing room, dressing room, fitting room, and then trial room, my favourite. Where else do you walk in a size offender and spend the next ten minutes building the case against yourself? This room has heard countless versions of the same case today, and i can feel the weight of every injustice in the air. I’m breathing in the last woman’s breath, and the woman before her, probably a whole day’s worth of disgruntled exhales, preparing for my turn.

I twist my shoulders, suck my tummy, and bend my limbs to get this dress on. It’s chic from the front and a disaster from every other side. Many an organ has had its daily chores interrupted by the tight fit, but i must ignore it and play the part. My deodorant is not holding, and i feel little droplets trickle down my spine. There’s a sharp shooting pain in my diaphragm, and i don’t know if it’s a cry for help from a rib or two, or just acid reflux. This is a nightmare. This is what they call body horror. But i know if i lose a few inches here and there, it will fit someday. I just need to tough it out for a minute, take out my phone, and give the performance of a lifetime.

Performance in a fitting room seems so recursive, though. You are the performer, you are the audience, you are the critic. But expand the theater, won’t you? Take two pictures, delete them, angle your body like you’re about to sell a detox tea to twelve million followers, take two more. Send them to your girlfriends, your partner, your mother, and cast a wider net for validation. “be honest, does this make me look fat?”

Look at yourself in all the mirrors for another minute. Throw the pile on the stool to join its family on the floor. Sit on it now — it’s yours, you’ve earned it through sheer perseverance. Now you wait for the replies as you think of a smoke and make out all the perfumes again. Wait some more till you can’t anymore.

Delete the photos. Delete the question. Take off the dress. Tell it sorry, it’s time we both went home. The monthly pilgrimage to an overpriced store is over. I wish i could meet the fitting room attendant’s eyes while i hand her this pile, but i’ll just mumble thanks and slip past her. There’s a line outside of impatient feet and tapping nails, and i wonder if anyone’s been counting. Ten minutes, zero purchases, one more body that didn’t make the cut. Good luck, ladies, i’m out!

On the ride home, i will celebrate the tiny, stingy victory of this failure. No money lost and no force-fitting a new pile into the closet. I will allow my phone to pitch me online alternatives and fall asleep scrolling and wish-listing another one. Tomorrow, my best friend will facetime me before going to a wedding and ask if the saree makes her look fat. I will scoff on reflex and tell her she looks beautiful. I will mean it, fully. She will still tilt the phone down anyway. She will adjust the pallu and pull at the blouse sleeve. “no, but see, it makes my arms look chunky.” And i will do what i always do — reassure, repeat, go through the whole loop, and try to steer us elsewhere — jewellery, shoes, drinks at the wedding. She will pout and give me a sour face because she knows this trick well, and then remind me, with great satisfaction, that i am just as bad. She will know that the woman who spends ten minutes telling her she looks perfect is the same woman who sent and deleted four fitting room photos just yesterday. We know the drill, so we will laugh it off before the hilarious tips into something sadder, before we notice how we have built whole temples of devotion for each other and left ourselves standing outside barefoot and hungry.

I see the woman from my aisle exiting the store without a shopping bag. Did she not get the dress either? Did she send the photos and delete them before the replies came in, or did she simply not like it? The fitting room got her, too, maybe. Pfft, of course not. She probably slid into it like a second skin and was the one doing the rejecting. I build her a whole perfect day in my head anyway, one where she wins it all. I hand her that grace on my way out, which is something i never run out of. It’s like an endless supply of plates at the table, passed around and around. My friend passes it to me, i pass it to the woman in my aisle; she might be passing it to the next woman in the next fitting room in the next city, stuck in a three-by-four.

All this grace and the tender “you are perfect, you look beautiful, I love you!” travels the whole length of the table, touching every pair of hands yet feeding nobody. We have so much of it, we just never seem to accept it when it reaches us. Every body gets our generosity, our warmth, our whole heart on a plate, every body except ours. Ours we save for hell.

This piece first appeared on my Substack — forking sheet, where i explore the intersections of sociocultural commentary, art, and poetry to make sense of my view of the world and self. It’s a space to steer through life’s sheet together, with reflections that read like a journal. Join me! 👇🏻

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