I grew up inside magazines,

Skinny little skeletons

Dance inside my head,

Brilliant golden silks ensnaring bodies so unfed.

They were beautiful angelfish,

Slicing through green water with

Angular rib cages. And there was me,

A bloated mess of fat. A whale sort of fish.

I sold my ugly tail, blubber for

Beauty. A shiny pair of thin

Little legs. A slender figure

Garmenting a menagerie of scales and fins.

I sold my voice to the devil,

Delicate glass dolls have no throats

To speak. I was a silent sculpture,

Fed venomous words I recited by rote.

Now I look back at my childish tail,

A chubby little thing that could be

Happy with food in her stomach.

A beautiful whale of a girl is somewhere,

lost at sea.