Elastic Band

Elastic bands compress
Sometimes too snug for comfort
A megabyte of a photo zipped into a file
The waist band reins me in
keeping the fat at bay, oozing out the side.
Suck in, she commands like a lie told through the teeth,
it’s a ‘fit.

Fraying threads signal decay
​Cheapness mistaken for frugality remains
I can wear the band down until it molds to my hips
It loosens its grip and extends a forgiving stretch

I can breathe now.

But the waist band never lets me forget
She’s a ruler without measure
Just a little salt, a little sugar to taste
Eye it at your own risk
She’s ruthless in her discrete numbers
Too old, too tight, it’s a fight to squeeze
Too old, too loose, it’s an outline of the crime scene
Marking red ruts in my flesh cleaving the fat into a valley

A spectrum of insecurity in its security
She hugs me insincerely —  all in the wrong ways
as hours melt into blurry days
Vacillating between my bed and my desk
I try to run it away
then sink into a pint of ice cream by day’s end

I didn’t used to have the bandwidth to care about this before