Content Warning: descriptions of disordered body image and eating
Jane wears a pink and lilac striped leotard. “Are you ready to work out?”
My body dips and juts in ways I cannot contain. Yet, my insides feel hollow. I take a shiny, yellow packet of Chipsmore! cookies to my room and put it next to the teetering stack of books.
“Lift, release. Squeeze tight.” The camera zooms in on Jane’s buttocks. Nothing wobbles.
The ceiling fan metronomes the soupy, tropical air. My mother and I are on the floor in our baggy track pants and t-shirts. We thrust our hips up as all the white people in the video moan like the workout is bliss.
“Stomach tight, buttocks pulled in.” She balls her fists to show just how tight.
My mother cuts an apple into wafer thin slices and unwraps a single triangle of La Vache Qui Rit that she bought specially from the European grocer. We take a bite of each, and she says, “Isn’t it wonderful that healthy food can be so good?”
“Five, six, seven, eight.”
I wear a thavani—a half-sari—to temple. My waist shows, and I am aware of the way it folds over as I sit—a messy crumple that pushes against my ribs. The uncles say I look very grown up. I use the pallu that hangs over my left shoulder to cover my waist.
“Climb the rope. Work that stomach.”
My mother tries the Cambridge diet. “It is not about being hungry,” she says, making up a shake with water and ice—the sound is like rocks in a washing machine. “It is about eating healthily.”
“Pull out of your body. Isolate that leg.”
I take a packet of Chipsmore! cookies up to my room. I finish a book and the packet of cookies in one afternoon, my hand reaching for the next before the last swallow. The book had a story, but I cannot tell you what it was.
“Energy. Five, six, seven, eight. Again.”
“Your body is beautiful. There is nothing you have to worry about at all. Eat,” my mother says, spooning a pillowy mound of rice on my plate.
“Resist. Resist. Resist. Resist.”
I go into the Jaya Jeans store at the top floor of the mall. The woman at the counter looks at my hips like they are parentheses for my body. “For you, definitely large size,” she says.
“Make it burn.”
“That cake was too rich,” my mother says, coming out of the bathroom wiping her mouth. “It didn’t agree with me. I feel so much better now. Lighter.”
“Again.”
I take a packet of Chipsmore! cookies up to my room. I put it on my desk and tell myself I will have one after I have read a chapter of this book. I also know that tomorrow, another packet will appear in the pantry. I turn the page, my hand already reaching for a cookie.
“You’ve done a great job. Don’t you feel good?”
Sumitra Singam (she/her) is a queer, neurodiverse Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has been published widely, nominated for a number of Best Of anthologies, and was selected for BSF 2025. She works as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist and runs workshops on how to write trauma safely and the Yeah Nah reading series. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?).
Bluesky: @pleomorphic2.bksy.social
Website: sumitrasingam.squarespace.com