"slimming" poems
i slipped the silk fabric over the curve of my hip and the scarred flesh of my thigh in a dressing room with three of my friends behind me, ******* in the fat of my stomach. they say black is supposed to be slimming but it only made me bloated; maybe the mirror was a liar (i know it didn't lie). an elephant with too-thick eyeliner and a too-thick body stared back at me and i bit through the skin of my lip till it bled and i wanted to live on some other planet where elephants were appreciated.
"that's the best one you've tried on yet," someone said, but i couldn't hear them over the red-eyed demon within me which whispered of shoving two fingers down the trachea, messy but quick, everything gone in an instant. if this was my best one, i was doomed because my eyes were glazed over with the misunderstanding that beauty would never apply to me.
"i'm just gonna go- go to the restroom-" and the red eyed thing inside me cracks its whip, takes over the nerves in my brain, makes my legs sprint to the toilets and it's over, it's done, the food gone among stomach acid, falling hair, and teeth erosion.
i can only imagine what the restaurant worker who was forced to clean rainbow-coloured ***** in the toilet thought.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
the curves on my
frame are the lines of
a sketch bent slightly
too far; i'm an awkward
angle in geometry
class no one dares to
find and this tiny black
dress is revealing too
much in too little
time. the whispers of
crisscrossed marked
thighs and starry knees
swirl before me and i'm
gone, disconnected. they say
black is slimming but
i've never felt more
potent and i hope
to god no one can see
right through me.
formal dances aren't
ideal for the invisible.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
Girl,
You’ll be a woman
Soon, so start
Straightening your hair
So it’s smooth and shiny
And cake on your cumbersome
Concealer because
Acne is for boys.
Browse bras in Victoria’s Secret
The ones with plentiful padding,
Push-up, so your cleavage
Screams: “I am a grown lady”
Even though you’re only thirteen.
Trade your sweats for slimming
Jeans that squeeze, skin-tight
Telling you to take a trot to trim
Your waist because you weigh
More than a delicate number.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 9:56 PM UTC
Goth Glam was a 2010 daydream.
I’ve detached myself
So far
From everything
That
When I got there
I realized,
I was staring at the very
edge of nothing
In the
Darkest parts of
Outer-mental space.
Space
Is
Cold&Empty;
So I am.
Here’s to finding
Light in darkness.
Until then,
I’ll be
Swimming in the slimming,
Black Sea.
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 12:14 AM UTC
it feels like the blood inside my veins is moving like quick dry cement does ten hours after it's poured
simultaneously a storm brews in them
similar to how mom once brewed soup that tasted of distanced family and bile
bile which still resides in a clump at the back of my throat from the last time i said your name
you are he-who-shall-not-be-named since saying your name is as dangerous as saying Voldemort’s
monochromatic colour schemes make up my world, each day either tinted or shaded
usually shaded because I was told that dark colours are slimming and that thought never left my mind
rain smudges all of the pigments together and even my glasses can't correct my vision
i love rain but my rainbows are always brown-black
like those karate belts you had when you lived
or how she used to mix all of her playdoh together
i used to believe that she created the world that way
god i wish i was right.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
Everybody wants an easy fix
before it gets too late
so I invented the Duct Tape Slimming Patch
for those who wanna lose weight
This miracle of science
is available online
And in those "As seen on TV" shops
for just $19.99
It's guaranteed to work
from the north down to the south
just take your Duct Tape Slimming Patch
and stick it over your mouth
Jul 21, 2010
Jul 21, 2010 at 1:36 PM UTC
The sun, so lover-like, ran her fingers
Through the glistening leaves,
Movements soft, so full of intention
Their waxy dew, shuttered in response,
A low moan played in the breeze,
The light of sonority contrasts the electric
Disharmonies in the stormy afternoon.
Though I could feel a forest now eased
The river that runs through
Carried the blood of a plural heart
Beating with a passion akin in power, though enemy in fashion,
As its waves beat the banks
Eroding them into, eating up the aridness
As though slaking were its due, muddying the sky’s blue
From its surface, piercing the eyes from its reflection
Discouraging, this turbid froth, from worth of further inspection.
It rages and rages over rocks so violently
Picking at its slimming walls, making and claiming
Detritus along the path so that all the beauty a river is
Crashes, collides, and disfigures—a chaos growing
Bigger and bigger—the speed of its wrath
Bespeaks of its wake, blasting the earth (Watch it dissipate!)
Out of my sight it runs its due course south
Spitting the detritus that arrives
At the mouth.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
Breathless in the winters ewe,valentines the adolescent passion, smiless like a drought world,tears creating up a dam,heart breakers proccess,pronounce and procceed daily a day to remember,swimming, slimming tear fall.calf love will never take you down,it reaches your beautiful inside,traps and translate you'r kindnes into a devil evil's bin.smash your mind into darknes,calf love is a herd of brocken hearts,dissapointments,it inherite trust and close of honnesty but when u once own it,you will never re think,than to re use.sense the heat of frictional emotional force,calf love bunks,sticks and turn,lean above lime light and its ectacy,charge and interchange nor interacts the internal lies,calf love is a misery of ones soul
May 7, 2011
May 7, 2011 at 5:12 AM UTC
I saw a myth destroyed
Actually, I saw it demolished
Stomped on, crushed
and totally abolished
We've all heard that
you look slimmer in black
Nope...big, fat lie
One myth is taken back
I went to a funeral
And the myth died
and joined the corpse
where it lied
Short, dumpy women
looking like dried out asphalt,
with matching wedge heels
crying and wandering about
hair colour from bottles
dressed as lumps of coal
the black dress, it hid nothing
like that 13th stomach roll
little round faced women
crying little round faced tears
in hockey puck like dresses
they all went and bought at Sears
there were blondes and
there were red heads
flaming briquettes...all there
to bury a myth with the dead
some, and by some...I mean few
dressed in black...looked nice
but the myth that black is slimming
you can put that one on ice
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 7:12 PM UTC
You're not eating properly
Eliane's mother said
you've hardly eaten a thing
Elaine who'd been thinking
of the boy John
looked up
through her glasses
at her mother
at the dining table
got to eat
her father interjected
got to eat
my young Plump Hen
her sister said nothing
but grinned
I do eat
Elaine said
but she didn't feel
like eating
it seemed the least
important thing
at that moment
her stomach felt
as if it had fallen
into a slumber
not enough
her mother said
maybe she's fallen in love
her father bantered
Elaine went red
and lowered her head
and began to nibble
at the food on her plate
nonsense
her mother said
it's some silly
slimming diet
I bet
not very successful
if it is
her younger sister said smiling
John had touched her arm
in passing at school
not by accident
but by design
he meant to touch
to bring her briefly
into his world
his circumference
she still touched
now and then
the area on her arm
he touched (at school)
with her fingers
I won't have you dieting
over some silly fad
her mother went on
but Elaine ceased listening
the words were buzzing flies
she wanted to
flick them away
with a hand
John had talked to her
not at her
or about her
(as others did)
or down to her
but with her
in a duel thing
he and she
kind of exchange
she ate slowly
the food almost
making her gag
getting stuck
in the throat
she held onto
the image of him
in her mind tried
to focus
on his outline
on his features
his words
taking each one
she could remember
and turning it over
in her mind
as if it were
a rare gem
girls your age
what are you now?
14 yes 14years old
ought not to diet
her mother said
breaking into Elaine's head
if I see you not eating again
I'm taking to the doctors
Elaine looked up
and put on
her good daughter face
that I'll do
whatever you want features
and John had placed
a hand by her head
at the school fence
his arm brushing softly
against her hair
and he never said anything
unkind about
her dark hair
or the metal grips
her mother made her wear
and her mother rattled on
but Elaine just returned
her innocent girl
stare.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 3:15 AM UTC
His wrists are my favorite part of his body,
Bones pressing delicately through pale, unscarred skin in a way mine haven't since the 6th grade.
The only bones showing on my body are my elbows and knees, just barely
And the worried bones of my insecurities.
I wish I could see my shoulder blades and hipbones.
I'd never hoped to be a skeleton but
I'd hoped to be proud of my appearance.
Even though my best friend tells me that I'm pretty just the way I am,
I know I'm not as pretty as my sister;
We're twins but no one ever believes us
She has gorgeous blonde hair and pale skin and sky blue eyes,
Hourglass shape.
I think she got the looks, but I always hope I got the brains.
Today I don't know which is the better end of the deal.
I know I am fat. I don't need any doctors or parents or bullies to tell me that
My curves are not big-boned,
Obesity doesn't run in my family,
No one runs in my family,
And by no one I mean me.
My every outfit is prefaced by compression shorts and slimming colors and self-conscious shame.
My stomach has ugly purple stretch marks like tongues of hungry fire
Burning away my self-esteem
Summer evenings aren't fun anymore
When my father tells me I'm too big to swing on the swing set
And my mother asks if I'm pregnant.
I'm not.
I'm a size 14. My mother thinks I'm a size 10.
When I try on the too-small clothes she brings home
I cry in the privacy of my bedroom mirror,
Oceans of salted pain worry over my face,
Try to rinse away the guilt.
At least I'm not an ugly crier.
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
I've read the news, and it's red
with painted lip prints, and the stain
of stranger thumbprints. They're not
mine. Neither of them. They belong,
lip and thumb, paint and stranger,
singularly to those others who don't
read or write such things. They may
bleed, them, but the blood isn't red,
or crimson, or cardinal, or scarlet.
Pick a shade of red, and it isn't that,
at least not until it's too, too late
to stanch. The bully's standard is to take
it all, all of it except the fall crisp that led
into this strangely warmer winter. I took it,
and I saved it in my bones to prepare,
but the cold didn't come. Not like we
were used to. I'm told the bully wears
what he takes with a dashing style. See it,
that royal blue that outfits him? The flowing
robes? The gold. I've been robbed. We have
been. Not of things, but of a view. A view
with no room for us in its downside-up
very periscope-unlike perspective.
There's no upside to the up-down
and just around the corner trips
I take. To the grocer. To the bar. To
the five and dime. It's fattened up
to a dollar. And the slimming newsprint
costs more than what I get
without the paper. I don't
get it, not the print, not the paper, not
the red lip prints, not the thumbprints
left by strangers, not the news
I've read and I'm reading.
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 6:25 PM UTC
Await amongst the clouds searching for whom to be,
I stand here now silently entrenched with what I see,
A vivid gaze I do afford though few and far between,
The slimming wealth of all those helped desperate to reconvene,
I wont pull away yet to find grounded truths I must,
The banks on offer within the vault tears rain through the lust,
I cling to those of faith without the strength for what to give,
Is it wrong to sing along yet forget the words to live.,
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
slim chance
of going back
to what you were
who you were
(it's too late)
your hopes
not shattered
but simply
slimmed down
bit
by dwindling bit
(to nothing)
grinding away
you start to hope
they would just
leave
quick
(like a bandaid)
and take
the demons
too
leaving you
with
n.o.t.h.i.n.g.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 9:16 PM UTC
She'd slept bad.
Thoughts of John
invaded her head
as she lay in bed.
She'd hugged her
Teddy close; kissed
him pretending.
Stroked Teddy's
head, his arms,
kissed him repeatedly.
Her sister snored.
Her sister talked
in her sleep.
Elaine wished
for morning.
Wished for dawn's
light and birdsong;
wanted John there
in her bed;
in her head.
Breakfast was a chore;
she didn't want to eat;
her mother said
she had to: none of
that slimming nonsense.
She ate feeling full,
feeling ill.
Lovesick her
father said jokingly.
Her mother
was not amused,
said just a slimming thing.
Elaine ate and mused dully.
Wondered if John
would kiss her again.
Did she want him to?
She didn't know;
half yes, half no.
The kiss made her
feel out of her
comfort zone;
made her feel
unknown feelings;
buzzes in her *****
She sipped the lukewarm tea:
sugary sweet, drowned in milk.
Her sister chatted about boys
and what so and so did.
Her mother said boys
were not for breakfast talk.
Her father said Elaine
-his Frumpy hen-
didn't need to slim,
was OK as she was.
Elaine wanted John;
wanted a kiss;
wanted him to touch;
a little not over much.
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 3:47 AM UTC
This is my American Spirit
Though I am loathe, but deserved to hear it
This is my generation in a long, sour drag:
Bohemes and hipsters, the self-important type
Self-serving directness with subtle insouciance
Self-righteous without e’er scents of conviction
Qualities, to all, vogue slimming befit
This, this is my American Spirit.
I’ll be the equalizer in a furtive game of chess
And acquaintance, its partner, arbitrating
I’ll wear the habit of means and humility
An ashen cherry, flicked, waiting to be
The pyrrhic finite ember and pastiche memory
Escape is apparent in discontinuity, my
Means to ravel a courser bond in someone,
As only a blush reminder only when they all clear it
Yes, this is my, my American Spirit.
We’ll have a game of butting desires
‘Tween all those appetites and some self-respect
Only, I know, to lose out in the end.
Is there a place for dignity to prevail
Or charm in an attempt likely to fail?
Can there be eyes open, minds or thought
To gentle pride its combatant ‘gainst
Unconscious abuses: yea or not?
But I will know irony as means to an end
Turned cheek from machination
That I can do, I can pretend
When the veil may be lifted—that I fear it
This, this is my American Spirit.
Of course I enable, for the cynosure, the dissonances
Supplant for fraternity fraternal-ligature
Too obvious is resolve ‘neath shaw of fleeting smoke
My own wants impeded, kept at a distance.
For, oh, Fortune! How you have written
Some conscience to mend it to others kept calm
A charity in practice as this cigarette is long
While vice, in all aspects, is the most correct wrong
But hummed out in truth as a fascist, he ought
I’ll turn to a tonic of strength to delude
That pretense and pride the conscience denude.
In some be it strong in others enthralled
Whilst ********* our prayer beads of looking-glass selves
Quietly burning the vestigial gods
That brought us a new light or perspective on things
And though we are loathe, we despise to hear it,
This, this is our American Spirit.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
I’ve read the news, and its red
with painted lip prints, and the stain
of stranger thumb prints. They’re not
mine. Neither of them. They belong,
lip and thumb, paint and stranger,
singularly to those others who don’t
read or write such things. They may
bleed them, but the blood isn’t red,
or crimson, or cardinal, or scarlet.
Pick a shade of red, and it isn’t that,
at least not until it’s too, too late
to stanch. The bully’s standard is to take
it all, all of it except the fall crisp that led
into this strangely warmer winter. I took it,
and I saved it in my bones to prepare,
but the cold didn’t come. Not like we
were used to. I’m told the bully wears
what he takes with a dashing style. See it,
that royal blue that outfits him? The flowing
robes? The gold. I’ve been robbed. We have
been. Not of things, but of a view. A view
with no room for us in its downside-up
very periscope-unlike perspective.
There’s no upside to the up-down
and just around the corner trips
I take. To the grocer. To the bar. To
the five and dime. It’s fattened up
to a dollar. And the slimming newsprint
costs more than what I get
without the print. I don’t
get it, not the print, not the paper, not
the red lip prints, not the thumbprints
left by strangers, not the news
I’ve read and I’m reading.
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 8:11 PM UTC
I grabbed the teal towel
Your naked body had been wrapped in last
Used your slimming bar of soap
Conditioned my armpit hair like you do
I even swirled shampoo in the palm of my hand
Because today is my first shower without you
My back will not get washed
Your wash cloths will stay folded
Still on top of the glazed porcelain
And only one lofa will get sudsy and wet
I think i'd rather ferment in my own sweat
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 10:47 PM UTC
Once upon a time, a long , long time to come
A man invented 'vacuum drain'. Yes, that's it's name.
It pumped out fat. Human fat. Fancy that!
He hoped to make a fortune slimming us
It oozed out ****
That poured in vats, all sorts of fats;
Brown and viscous, white and lardy,
He worked so hard he
Didn't think things through.
The vats just grew.
And then he knew what he could do!
He'd sell it on! He'd make a bomb!
It worked a treat
The excess meat
Could feed a nation
A neat equation!
Fat westerners just couldn't wait
To line up and donate.
They even paid its fare
To take it anywhere
But on their bones
So..... Lean and svelte and handsome
They gave it all....and some
To feed the poor and dig into their land.
The idea was so grand
That it caught on
And all around the world the fat was shifting.
So many westerners were gifting
That share prices took a drop.
First slimming world went bust
And all the diet companies shut up shop.
Cheap labour went back home to families big and hearty
Who probably had a party
To celebrate their luck.
But.. Oh dear me!
The poor economy!
A tax was levied on the draining oil
To try and spoil
The benefits of losing weight
The media filled its screens with chubby faces
Fat people now appeared in all important places
But still the people shrank
To be quite frank
They had to sell the fat
to pay the vat.
Fat cats ( now thin) jumped in to run the racket
They hoped to make a packet,
But now the tide began to turn
The fat was used to burn
As fuel. The oil wells closed, the mines shut down
And people learned to burn their own fat too
No middle men, no ads campaigns, no V.A.T.
Just drainage after tea.
So little waste (waist)
(Spell it as you like, it's all the same)
.......now play the game
And carry on this fantasy
Where could it end?
If you have more, just add it on, my friend.....
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 12:36 PM UTC
You’ve put leaves in piles
with ceaseless breath—
before, they were green
and dilated. I think they
knew they had to fall.
I’ve seen the grayed walks
lie under milkfoams of
fog you spear with flits
of once-in-a-while rain, as
Jupiter swallows comets.
You wrap birds in tight
black coats, slimming
their feathers. You don’t
let them speak. A dim
shadow is uncovered.
I find sheets over me,
all white or all sky blue—
remembering how clean
the cool dryness feels
and rustling in the wind.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC
Darkness isn't becoming you told me
as we tore the world open again
and yet that night you kissed me back
as darkness I became
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 10:28 PM UTC
Without sinking through the spheres. Hymns betting, still hands crisp under the wings. The wind slumbering, stays in the dark spaces. Eleven invisible pages, over. Any other name- Lux Arabesque, Uuqui Haratas, Preset: 117, and the foil.
The mirrored valley’s strangest flora, sifts the decorated thriving trails. Then it can all become an infinite weave in this world where lazy whistling sand dunes beyond, claim the rights to a juried Spring. Then somehow it may recant this glorious history we’ve only barely known. The potent eyes starved by madness, waxes seas and radio fields, slimming the loops that rip into hinges and dispel a tryst.
Toward Earth’s serene prelude, this pageantry of standard masks make ascending towers just and stately. Then come the planets we’ve always loved: Mars, Neptune, and Jupiter too. Barefoot and staggering through the modern coolness of a colossal spring, aching mental itching grows. Until the fruits have fallen into the cloven shadows. Until buried stones alit with day consecrate these omens and conceive such lucid strings to break these quiet thieves into song.
Then the diary belies this affair. The steins upset the tales where pungent fleshy working minds coalesce. Observe the horses play in their endings, upon the wild mountain rivers where felling human eyes wander amidst these cleaved and sun-drenched desert mounds.
Pt. II
In origins uplifting diets foretell the escaped seams of darkness whose lofty tongues of nature’s prose lift the veiled hours’ wraith. Never pressing bells nor raked by shivers, it occurs swiftly should the marbled rushing master call. Above the sound of narrow whispers, comes the wishing hands to shout.
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 2:28 PM UTC
I bought these designer pants yesterday,
Endorsed by all the gram influencers,
They are slimming they all gushed.
The pants are made of the softest wool,
Designed to cocoon and insulate you,
Protect you from all the judgement.
They have pretend pockets stitched in,
Because what could you possibly put in them,
That’s more important than looking thin?
Nov 20, 2021
Nov 20, 2021 at 6:56 PM UTC
Flight of Rococo
The marina was quiet this Sunday afternoon
The horde had gone back to their offices and factories
The pensioners who take vacation in September
And October walks slowly about and eat well they are
Not going dancing, the women will be tiddly and feel
As they did forty years ago, perhaps tonight the hubby
Will be frisky, but having drunk wine he will fall asleep
She has been going in and out of shops I'm outside
Pretending to be elsewhere I think of Goya's women.
Ah, this slimming craze why do so many women think
It is **** to look like freed concentration camp victims
She is tired now sits on a bench I walk around and look
At boats, I could never afford, except for a few ocean
Ship made of wood polished by rough hands by men who
Are not politically correct calling the ship a she that have
Or possess what men like about women
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 8:01 AM UTC
You couldn't swing a dead cat
Between me
And the Core of All Existence.
I hide myself from External Affairs
Behind homeground
Impenetration.
All I care to explore is my own
Present outermost psychocosmos.
I could open my mouth and
Expell whole systems; solar and
Other.
In constant consumption with
Every sense employed; I know not
When to stop.
I breathe pure air on spiritual diet,
Slimming down to a complete
Absence of Self. Leaving an
Impression like a Lover of Life on
Something dead; I feel nothing
But alive.
I close my eyes and bask in the
Loaded sensation
Of every gun in the room
Being pointed at my person.
They live by me.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 10:29 AM UTC