There’s this sentiment, this lie, this need

stuck between the folds of my irises,

Laced in seamlessly with my eardrums,

Glinting off compassion and appreciations.

Your compliments strike my ears

the way chips fill my gut, fattening

my ego with empty calories.

I can’t ignore the love handles

in the mirror, not as I clasp the loose skin around my waist; it looks like a swallowed a car

tire whole. I’m still digesting it,

Like an anaconda might.

Pulling the skin off the rough bone

And sinew underneath, I make sure to reason,

delicate in preserving my self-kindness:

comparing myself to others.

My waist may be wide, but so are their’s;

this flaw isn’t mine alone to bear.

Yet, they don’t have the legs I do.

Vanity, such a comfort,

finding the good amidst the bad,

lighting the way for darkness to follow.

There, the logic goes, if I am the same, then

I must be better.

A way to assuage my panic over dreaded commonness,

an excuse to avoid becoming someone.

And so I remain misled, complacent by pride,

packaging my soul in with the norm,

our thoughts melding into one semi-coherent

Blob.