One Poet’s Truthful Reminder That Body Acceptance Isn’t Always Easy

Being a woman is hard. Being a fat woman in an image-obsessed, body-shaming culture can be even harder.

In her stunning poem, “On the Good Days,” Yesika Salgado reminds us that when it comes to body image and self-acceptance, it’s important to acknowledge not just the struggle of the worst days, but the beauty of the good ones, too.

“What good is all this body positivity I always talk about when my own body exhausts me?” she asks at the start of the poem. Her worst days will sound familiar to so many women: looking at friends’ bodies as the bodies we might never have, seeking validation from men, staying home when we should be going out because we don’t feel good enough about ourselves and the way that we look.

But her good days ― those will sound familiar, too. “I confuse people who think you can’t be this fat and still be the baddest chick in a room...I could blind the sun on days like that,” she says.

The ups and downs of self-acceptance are real, and the poem is a brilliant nod to the struggle that women have, and a reminder that you can be “fat and beautiful...every fucking day.”