I’m too fat

I’m not good enough

They will never like me

I don’t have to accept that everyone

else says that Bigfoot is a yeti,

when I know the truth.

Each animal is its own self.

There’s a possibility of a different

truth. Maybe I can be someone different

when I wake up.

Not Bigfoot or a yeti.

Maybe it isn’t even that I want to only lose weight.

Maybe I want to find the real me.

Pick

We drop Pick off at the Dolan house,

say hello and good-bye

to his parents.

He gives me

his manila folder,

his graph paper,

an envelope full

of drawings.

Take these, he says.

Work on Alcatraz Base while I’m gone.

It’s the starting point for the players.

Make it solid.

I promise I will.

Later, Pick! I tell him.

Have fun flying

a million hours

to Australia.

Watch out for the bunyips!

People always leave.

At the bottom of the stairs,

one of the slats on the railing

is slightly broken, so it snaps

if you touch it as you walk by.

This time

down the stairs,

I break

the whole piece

right off.

She Doesn’t See It

I don’t see it, you know?

At the breakfast table,

I’m eating eggs and cheese.

Lisa is eating toast.

She tries to eat what I eat,

but she tells me that sometimes

a body just wants some toast.

In my silence,

she gives me more words,

quiet little gifts

that hit the right places.

No, I’m serious, I don’t get it, she says,

the whole fat thing.

I mean, I understand

how you might feel bad

when other kids are idiots,

but why do you let it bother you?

She pauses.

I look down at my eggs.

So what if there’s more of you?

I love all her words.

They have so much power.

She is listening,

paying attention,

like a friend should.

She doesn’t cancel how I feel,

dismiss it

or wrap it up

in a different way.

She lets my pain be real to her too,

but she also makes

me feel strong, like what others

say doesn’t matter at all.

Lisa spreads gobs of butter on her toast,

lifts the knife, and smiles.

No carbs, right?

We laugh.

I stare at the toast

for a long, long time.

I imagine the crunch

of bread in my teeth.

How can someone

never have bread again?

This can’t go on forever.

Long, Good Days

Days stretch,

yawning dogs

with straightening backs.

We swim under the sun.

We don’t care who we are.

Today is every day

and tomorrow.

If I could stop time here,

I would pull the cold

handle of the moon

to my face,

order it to

shift its weight

and make

everything

a steady ocean.

Baby Huey

We walk back from the beach,

the sunset behind us.

Lisa and I are laughing.