I'm Adely Mone and this is The Slowdown.

As some of us work to reclaim and celebrate our bodies in all their myriad of forms,

many people are reclaiming the word fat, owning the word, owning their bodies, and rendering

the word free of its negative connotations.

In articles everywhere from Teen Vogue to The New York Times, folks are taking the time

to explain that the word fat itself isn't a bad word.

In fact, in Self Magazine, the writer and co-host of the podcast Maintenance Phase, a podcast

I highly recommend if you like all things about

Diet Culture being debunked and dragged through the mud, confession I love it.

Aubrey Gordon writes, we need to talk about the word fat.

Specifically, we as a collective society need to make room for understanding fat,

the way many plus-sized people do, as a neutral even affirming term.

I am interested in how we reclaim language, I mean, of course I am, I'm a poet,

and how many times have I wanted to reach into someone's mouth and take a word back,

take my own name back so they couldn't own it or use it against me?

I want the language we use to be smart, intentional, well thought out, and I want it not to do

harm. I don't always get my way, clearly, but I love celebrating the way we can own our own words,

even those once used against us. Like putting stones in the riverbed, we can make them shine

all over again. Today's poem explores the word fat in a smart and rhythmic way.

I love this poem because it allows the listener to experience the way the speaker has lived

with the word fat and how she changed it.

And the word was God by Savannah Cypil. In the beginning was the word and the word was fat.

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