Mask

If I can smell your cologne,
you’re too close. You’ve come
too near. Please
be mindful of my feeble heart
and keep your social distance.
You wear your mask
and I’ll wear mine
and I’ll pretend not to know
about your mistress.

Dieting

Content disclaimer: Mention of starvation, allusion to eating disorders.

In the ruthless seconds of dieting,
imagining your stomach shrunken
to the size of a juicy orange clementine,
and your thighs
to the width of a spindly-sweet
homegrown carrot or
a zero calorie celery stick,
the baby fat in your cheeks reduced
to paper-thin slices of ripe rosy peach.

Your soul,
somewhere shrunken in your skin,
a tiny fluttering thing, pirouettes
past bones and poking elbows and ribs
that line the cage consuming you.
You have
eyes the size of dinner plates.

Oh, you’re not there yet?
Do you want to be that plump
little child
that witches eat in fairytales?
If you’re not there yet
just starve yourself and wait.