my subject, mrs. ((brown?))
for this speech is
going to be: obesity. ish.

you see I remember
the article you handed out to us,
loos-leafed,
fresh-pressed,
a dry white piece that told,
in simplest terms,
the most inarguable & bland facts
about !healthy eating & !weight loss!

but mrs ((whatever)), I want
to tell n and the entire
******* crisp class,
that obesity is a load
of steaming ****
from someone who’s really fucki
ng sick (you know how much
better it stinks then)

that obesity
was made to be glorified,
I don’t tell you this—
I ****** jiggle it to you,
grab my santa clause puch and
shove it at you--

tick tock
we wait for the clock
to tell us what
s to come,
except it makes us guess

--see this:
a mid-age woman, mother,
fat & previously fat,
goes in for stabbing pain in the chest, or
chronic diarrhea,
seeing stars & no energy left.
((this happens))
the doctor says,

well let’s weigh you n see
if you’ve lost
the weight I told you to lose before
remember Sharol

now Sharol..,,,, sweety…..
you weigh 55.62 lbs over the
state-set “healthy limit”k,
so we’re just gonna give u these
diet pills & I promise they work,.
all nach-yer-awl u see, none of that
waterweight ******* [! excuse my language]

and in about 3 months you’ll lose
half that overweight,
and I promise the starsll go away and you’ll
feel right tip top okay now that’ll be
$60 & come bac k in a month to tell me
how much you’ve lost okay

haha but that’s alrightright?
she was unhealthy
&
doctors make you healthy

only her brain cancer maybe, or like, colon
cancer or literally anything other obesity

kills her in about 3 months
bc the **** doctor would only
pretend that she cared
what
was
wrong with Sharol, sweety…,,,

im sharol and so are you and
so is your uncle & so is
your mother, probably
because most of us are “obese”

& the only cure for obesity
is the cure for the term
“obesity” you see

average yearly income: 7k, maybe I
live with my parents

national
poverty income for a
household of one (1): 14k

except im not a
household of one

I’m a household of:
me,
my cat,
my dog,
my betta fish & his snail friend,
my demons

and they all try to eat me out
of house and home

and then I deal

with what spirits I accidentally
call from their weird etherworld lives,,,,
into my little windowsill with its
candles and rusty cauldron,
scarf cloth,
n lost intentions

You can’t ask me what is wrong,
because it’s always something different.
You can’t ask me why I’m acting this way,
because I can’t explain it.

I will tell you I love you,
and for a while my voice
will echo back the stone walls
of your throat,

and then I’ll find myself alone
in a taunting, repeating cave that lies.
It doesn’t matter that you say you love me,
or that I believe it.

My love is strong and deep and fiery;
it imprints itself like a brand on my own flesh.
I imprinted on you, like a mother duck to her
babe, or maybe it goes the other way.

You can’t ask yourself what went wrong
unless you want to come down with
me, briefly, into my net of nonsense
and mental illness.

There you’ll find my mother,
and the time in the first grade
when I was molested,
and the time I stepped on an ant

and cried for ten minutes.
Listen.
I am a wave, an ocean wave.
I crash and roar, I nurture and heal,
and tear myself down
every time I breach.
I will take you in my warm
embrace, and we will for a while
float, but the time
will come
when I will have to drag
you against the glass-sharp pebbles
at my gargantuan belly.