now I’m sweating,

sweating and I remember walking

really heavy and fat at seven-teen-

it was like ninety degrees

a walk-in oven.

what did I know then?

it feels like that time

happened to someone else,

some girl who happened to die

or fade into obscurity

with stretch marks and cesarean scars

a passive husband and grimy faced children-

but then again I catch

glimpses of that girl

in my own long mirrors

and realize it was

my life a long time ago.



so I was trying to get a job

at some grocery store

and was walking home from the *** test,

nothing to worry about

such as the vanilla life I was tame-

(a subordinate in denial)

walking from the lab in

a sweltering haze

wanting to die

frizzy hair

stuck and humid

some boy I thought I loved

some boy I thought I would die without

sleeping sound in the air conditioning

in my bed-

and I lurched on

busses passing me

with the mild hope I would never sit in one again-

and that I could please a dandruffed haired

and acne scared boy

who harvested dreams of my toil.



as I showered clean and fell

like a fleshy tree with yesterday’s make up

still clinging

beating self-loathing with sleep,

I woke a decade later,

a slim shadow free

and wish that the old me knew

what I had starved to learn-

I smile and think,

I don’t even have a picture

to remember all this by.