Don’t Stand There, Sir. I’m Already Wrestling Myself.

Some days, my thighs are in an underground cage match.

No ref.

No rules.

Just unprovoked violence.

They’re fighting for dominance like one’s trying to prove it’s the “better leg.”

I am but the referee, flinching with every step.

Meanwhile, I’ve been telling myself I’m not fat—I’m just composed.

Thick with thoughts.

Heavy with potential.

Balanced, like my diet...

which includes ice cream as the calcium-rich, dairy-adjacent, self-soothing supplement it was clearly meant to be.

But here’s where it all comes undone:

Some medieval gentleman from the era of corsets and fainting couches

apparently taught the modern male species

to hold the door open from inside the frame.

Sir.

Why are you in the doorway?

Why is your body parallel with mine?

Why must we share a moment

every time I try to enter a building?

Why do I have to breathe in your morning cologne

and lightly graze your chest like a timid first kiss?

Why is this a make-out session

I’ve been avoiding on purpose

by not choosing to date for the past 10 years?

I didn’t ask for eye contact.

I didn’t sign the consent form for this architectural seduction.

I’m just trying to get through the door,

not the stages of intimacy.

Not to brush clavicles with a stranger who thinks chivalry means

turning an exit into an experience.

And now I have the added responsibility

of faking a smile

and coquettishly saying thank you—

like I enjoyed the chest-to-chest communion

and would recommend it to a friend.

Move, sir.

Step aside with the grace God intended when He created vestibules.

Put the door all the way open, sir.

And back away like the gentleman your mother hoped for.

Because I’m already fighting myself.

My thighs are in the 12th round.

And now I gotta add you to the list of obstacles between me and my next socially acceptable breath.

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