Who Am I?

The life in my head seems
so different from the life outside,
where I am so big
that everyone stares,
but no one sees the real me.

My name is Ari Rosensweig.
This year, I am the newest seventh grader
at Mill Valley Middle School.
I have sandy-brown hair
and green eyes like my father's.
I'm average height, but

I am a fat kid, and I hate it when
people call me names.
Even though I'm overweight,
I can still do everything
everyone else can —
ride my bike, play video games —
but people just see me as different,
only notice who I am
on the outside.

My mother is an artist
who sculpts giants in clay
and paints the world
on canvas, on murals,
and even on clothes;
my father sells what she paints.

I'm an only child.
Sometimes I get lonely,
wish for a brother or sister,
but I get so much time to myself
to do what I like to do,
and no one interferes.

I make role-playing games.
I'm going to be a cryptozoologist.
I want to find the creatures out there,
like Bigfoot, that might seem so different
but that belong to this world too.

My mother says we are going
to spend the summer at the beach;
Out in nature, she says.
I like the beach, but I don't like
taking off my shirt.

I always have to hike up my pants,
and I worry that there isn't enough food,
because I'm always hungry.
More than anything, I think,
I want to lose weight,
and I don't know how.


Why Are You So Fat
people always ask (not always out loud)

I'm not fat.
I sit up straighter,
feel the rolls on my body unbuckle.
I just have big bones. That's what my mom says.
I have big bones and bigger spaces in between them.
  Why are you so fat?
Well, they say my grandfather, from eastern Europe
had a mysterious disease that made him big;
he carried it with him,
and he gave it to my mother
and my mom had it and now I have it.
  Why are you so fat?
Because my grandmother made me eat every bite,
told me to never leave anything on my plate.
  Why are you so fat?
It's a gland problem.
I've got bad glands.
Someone told me about glands,
so I think I have bad ones.
  Why are you so fat?
The doctor says I can't help it.
He says I may not look normal,
but I'm healthy enough to carry the stars,
and this fat keeps me safe.
  Why are you so fat?
Because I love school lunches: meat pies and yogurt cups
and a giant cookie, and then after school
I take the five dollars my parents give me
and buy slices of pizza from Mario's and play the old Pac-Man machine until dark,
stack quarters along the edge
until I pass the second apple.
  Why are you so fat?
My parents are never really home anyway.
They're busy,
and I fill myself up with food and watching TV,
comic books, and going to the park, and hot dogs with ketchup and onions.
  Why are you so fat?
Sometimes I get home to an empty apartment
and the echo of the cars going by on the street outside.
  Why are you so fat?
Because if someone asks enough times,
then the question becomes the answer.


Moving

When your mother is an artist,
you move a lot.
We stretched ourselves
across the whole country
from New York to San Francisco,
far from our family
and everything we knew.

For the artist,
making a new life
is as simple
as scraping off a palette,
setting up a new studio.

For me
the studio means
quiet corners
with slabs of clay,
sketch pads
and universes,
hands and face chalked
...