DisConnect

Claire Niederberger

There is a problem with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich:

There is a dis_connect between you and me,
Because one of us can't see what we don't want to see
And the tension keeps rising
And I keep disguising my need to solve our difference.

I want to conn_ect with you,
I want to look up to you.
When you're on the scale
Weighing in for the day;
I want to weigh myself, too.

It's inn_ocent at first.
Calling myself fat in bathing suits,
At worst.
But soon it is more
I am the one informing you that
You don't have to stop eating yet.
"There's still some more spaghetti in the bowl,
Mom.
You can eat it.
I am sure you won't get fat."
When I don't believe it
And don't want any either.

I want to remove the frag_ment
That makes you clench.
I want to tell you
That
"Your butt isn't huge!",
"Your belly is small!",
and
"I wish I had hips like you!"
Yet still, I kind of want to worry like you.

I want to loose weight like you.
I want to feel good like you.
Say you do

And the dis_connect becomes my open
Mouth.
And food isn't going in there any time soon
Because I want to be like you, Mom,
So that I can make you happy.

There is a problem with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich,
Because there is a crescent moon bite taken out of it
and I stare at it as though it is from another galaxy
Dis_connected by space
In the midst of my head's spinning planet,
dizzy...
And wish instead that I could only be a black hole
Where food went in with no impact.

There is a dis_connect between the world and me.
The pants I used to wear are now to large and sagging
At the waist and
I see my grades go down
And my attention span keeps wandering to when
The next meal will be.

And how I will avoid it.

There is a dis_connect between hungry and me
And I don't know what I want me to be
Anymore because irrationality takes over.
So I look away
because today
I don't want to expose that

dis_connect between you and me,
Because neither of us can see what we don't want to see.
And this tension keeps rising
And I keep disguising my
need
to solve this difference.