I might even take off my shirt.

I practice in our apartment,

walk to the tall mirror in the hallway,

stare at the white tank top,

and slowly lift it off.

I try to unhunch my shoulders,

but they feel cemented

from years of

trying to be more compact.

This time, as I stand up,

my stomach

and my belly

sit firmly above

the button of my shorts.

When I lean my head forward,

I have one chin, and my legs

are thinner. I think I might

even be taller.

This doesn’t look like me.

It can’t be me.

I don’t look like this,

normal.

What if I didn’t weigh myself.

Not now.

Not ever again?

This can’t be right,

to live like this,

scale to scale,

pound to pound,

forever?

I walk slowly to the bathroom,

eye the scale, and step

one foot in front of the other.

The tiny white stage,

an altar.

Hello, scale, I whisper,

and close my eyes

so the numbers have time

to settle. Before I open my eyes,

I tell myself a lie,

that I don’t care,

but I push it away,

and instead I utter something

like a prayer.

I open my eyes,

see the number,

do the math in my head

of all the weight I have lost.

21

16

and now:                       31.

I breathe,

step off.

Step on

right away

to make sure.

31. Thirty-one.

31.

31.

It feels good,

but then, for a moment,

I think about the 31.

Where does it all go,

so much weight

suddenly gone

from my body?

Inside, I can still feel it,

but it’s different,

still a part of me,

but transformed,

not heavy anymore,

just weightless memories

of the real me.

The Heaviest Water Is My Father

I go with my mother to do errands

in the morning, and we have breakfast

at the Chestnut Street Bar and Grill.

She says I can have one piece of toast,

but I don’t. I don’t feel like eating.

I’m tired of errands and meetings,

of always wondering what will happen.

I have one more meeting today. With a lawyer.

I look up from my eggs.

You look so different, she says.

I don’t respond. She keeps talking.

The business is sold.

I just need to sign the papers today.

So, she changes the subject,

I have a new idea

for a series of drawings.

She pulls a pen from her purse,

sketches a perfect hand reaching down

from the sky onto a beach,

talks to me about

some ancient goddess,

some story about rebirth

and redemption.

I think this new work

will make the ground shake.

Why? I ask, annoyed. I can’t take it anymore.

She looks at me, draws her napkin toward her. Why?

Yes, I say. Why does it even matter?

Sometimes it seems like the art

matters more than I do.

Maybe my dad isn’t here

because he felt like this too.