Kailah Peters is an emerging African American writer who studies creative writing at DePaul University. She writes with Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand around Chicago. Her work was debuted in Rigorous Magazine.

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Does the galaxy have stretch marks?

Alexis is mad because her thighs are bigger than the girth of two hands. She says her boyfriend is going to leave her for a skinny bitch. She says she’ll never be small enough to deserve love.

I laugh, and I know that’s wrong, but I laugh. No one wants a smaller sun! The North Star doesn’t sit jealous of those in Orion. The moon isn’t seething because she can only reflect light.

Alexis asks me if I ever fear that I’m a bad writer. I tell her no, but I’ve accepted that I’m not the best. This confuses her because why do something if you can’t be the best? Again, I laugh. Can you name the best star? Could you pick between the moon and the sun? Is any raindrop better than the last?

Alexis looks down at her thighs. I can see her comparing her waist to the rings around Saturn. But I’m not a star, she complains. Yet again, I laugh.