The Waist Land

D. S. Oillot, JR.

Sie hat eine schmale Taille,

sie muß nicht schlank werden.

Celebration of a most elegant nature

must culminate in a plentiful meal.

Mouths full of flesh,

lips covered in grease

we welcome the night.

Stomachs we cannot see in the dark

are pictured as they were before,

but with the morning the light always comes.

The thin men will haunt you in the crowds

where their eyes meet your circular forms.

Their burning gaze only makes you thicker

while you slowly melt from the inside.

Ideal bodies are washed away

in waves of sorrow, denial and guilt

and replaced with a shapeless lump of fat.

Is this really goodbye?

Once we were like humans,

one with our perfect body.

Now trapped in this bouncing disguise

we’ve lost our will to be.

Life is very short when time goes by.

Time doesn’t carry this weight away.

How does one begin a hopeless battle?

And how does one go about it?

Losing weight, measuring weight,

living for one’s body alone?

I’ve searched for a waist under this body,

a body I do not recongnize as my own.

I’ve measured out my life in calories.

Forever trapped in this shell of fat —

but when the flood comes — I will float.