January: Weight-Chart Restart
by D.R. James

          For what I want to do I do not do,
         but what I hate I do.
–Romans 7:15

Diets had come and gone, their
systems, their
evanescent science.

Trouble was
my stomach: much bigger
than my eyes; and,

unlike Emily D.’s,
my universe: more ungainly
than my optimistic brain.

Those positive thinkers,
Tony Robbins,
Norman Vincent Peale,

Stephen R. Covey, and
Jake–Remember? Body by Jake?–
should’ve taken note

like OA confessors:

“Hi, I’m David. I’m
a real person; my appetite
is more tenacious
than your plans for my life.”

See, living in real skin–

whether Saint Paul’s or
Saint Valentine’s,
Jeffrey Dahmer’s or

Mine–
was not what those gurus
must’ve had in mind.



 

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