Fat Girl

I’m big
I’m broken
I can’t change form
the chemical cheese
they feed me has slowly
seeped into the hollows
of my bones and I am
so full

stasis and distance
pour out of my throat
when I try to say

I’ve had enough

night falls on my sister
with Steve
and I pretend to sleep
she rolls around, over
and beneath as the clock
ticks away seconds it
can never regain

I know he couldn’t hold
the weight of my

hips, bum, calves and the
fleshly furrows that
split me in pieces
from my legs to my
neck and…
my breasts

Mother tells me I don’t need
a bra but they bulge tent-like
through t-shirts. Ana says
it’s burger fat but why
did I catch him looking?

In a chlorine cocoon
I feel weightless and free and I
imagine riding upon the backs of men
echoing pleasure, I am
Godiva, unpeeling before the great
nation of Tropicana
higher and higher I fly
into the
micro-waved sky

a pain explodes between my thighs
I topple over, head to table
father tells me to act my age
a sticky cherry blob
on Ikea white
like
the Japanese flag

mother flitters about
I peek at the mouthwash
moon hiding in the dark
and I wait for something that
will explain

instead, my sister shuffles
a plate of mars bar
ice-cream
across the table.