She's tried them all before
and always failed, the war
against her waistline more
than she can win alone,
eating dinner on her own:
some broth, a chicken bone
clad in a scrap of meat,
a lettuce leaf replete
with vinegar. Defeat
is just a Hershey's bar
away, the gallon jar
of peanut butter not far
enough beyond her reach.
Some dieters beseech
the gods for help. South Beach
and Atkins are divine,
two deities thin as twine.
Some women choose to dine
on nothing but the breeze,
or no white foods, or string cheese,
ham, and raspberries.
Some women pick protien
instead of carbs, caffine
instead of lunch. They've seen
the opposite of fat
is never thin--it's that
solitude she can't combat,
no matter what she eats.
She's still alone, still cheating
on a fast she won't complete.
Another diet. There will
be no way then to fill
her stomach up, no pill
to kill the appetite.
Alone, she will recite
a prayer for each bite
of food. How good to digest
cardboard, how very blessed
that thirst can be suppressed.
- Improv':
The scales never tell her the truth,
and the digital, bold-black numbers
flash criptic warnings the bulging
bones cannot. There is a thickness too
thin between the right and left inner-
thighs that keep sex and boys and condoms
from wanting a wet-touch, or the very fingers
attached to the body so juiceless from a flicking
self-pleasure. There are two curves too
many absorbing every nibble of celery stalk, every
swallow of luke-warm water; no matter the bottom-
belly lump from malnutrition that excess sit-up's
temporarily cure. How good to see clothes sag lower than
each bicep femori, how convincing the full-length mirror
is when she behaves, when the weight of skin doesn't move.
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