Emma Burger

Emma Burger is a Chicago-based writer. Her debut novel is titled Spaghetti for Starving Girls. You can find her work in Hobart, Write or Die Magazine, and Black Lipstick, at emmaburgerwrites.com, or on Substack at emmakaiburger.substack.com. She is an essays editor at Zona Motel.

YOU TEACH ME HOW TO BE by Emma Burger

You’re all so thin and beautiful. I only wanted to be like you. To want for nothing. To live in a gorgeous Tribeca loft. To wear Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana like it was nothing. To show up to morning drop-off at P.S. 234 with an expensive blowout and a full Alo set, en route to pilates. You lived the life I thought I deserved.  One day. For now, I was supposed to be your yoga teacher. Your guide. I wanted my body to look like all of yours, but I was the reason yours looked the way they did….

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