Just the Way You Like It

Lauren Kim '27

small like your hand fits around my wrist is proof i exist.

delicate, exotic, no, you mean less. less voice. less eyes that look back

so you touch. Easy.

& i learned early to make myself smaller

mother’s hands on my shoulders, pressing down, keep your head down, lower your eyes.

my smallness was currency. i agreed. i shrunk.

but you hated me too. that’s what no one tells you. you loved the fantasy & hated the girl.

touchable & despised that i was there in the first place.

if i wanted less, if my voice stayed in my throat & my hands stayed small & my eyes stayed down, maybe you wouldn’t hate me for the thing you craved.

i watched your hands touch me like i wasn’t there. contempt beneath desire & something in that watching grew sharp

he doesn’t want you small. 

he wants you gone.

taste this:

what happens when small thing stops cooperating with its own depletion

& when i look up

when i stop lowering the gaze

you’ll see what you were afraid of. what you needed me small to hide

a human. looking directly back.

& that terrifies you more than my smallness ever could.