Vinegar

Content Warnings: Before you click, you might need to know that this page contains references to self esteem issues, binge-eating disorder, weight related thoughts and shame.

Vinegar  (2021)

Vinegar
pools on my bathroom tile,
turns the faux marble a sickly yellow.
That looks like my first secret.
That bit is the shape of my first shame.
It’s pooling in the grout lines now.
It might bleach it back to bone,
it might eat its way through the mineral
and seep through my kitchen ceiling
like a singular lost leech trailing its way
back to blood.
This is the room I keep my weight in.
This is the place where I watch it
slowly creeping 
flooding
everything.
I tell myself it is art, in theory.
It tells me I am a neon pink coach
with cushions overstuffed with cactus needles
and stupid self-referential poems
that point discreetly at the problem
and then encourage you to look the other way.
I try to tell it I am just as Poet as I am Ugly
but even that is acidic in my mouth.
Even that is vinegar
flooding the room.

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