Anorexic

Poetry by Scott C. Holstad

She was six feet tall

and one hundred

fourteen pounds when

I met her. A former

Dallas model, she’d

followed a man here only

to have him break up.

Brown bobbed hair

halo’d her head; she

liked to dance by her

self, mostly to

the Talking Heads.

She ate a baked potato

on Tuesdays and a

garden salad on Fridays;

when she stood naked

in front of her floor

length mirror, she’d

sigh, “I’m so fat,

look at those thighs.”

She cried on the way

to the pound when her

dog was evicted by

the slumlord.

She was one hundred

four pounds when it ended;

I don’t know how much she

weighed when she died.

*Originally published by Mixed Bag, 1994.

BIO: Scott C. Holstad has authored 60+ books & has appeared in the Minnesota Review, Exquisite
Corpse, Pacific Review, Santa Clara Review, Chiron Review, Palo Alto Review, Southern Review,
Poetry Ireland Review, Libre, PULP, WIREWORM, Hidden Peak Press, Misfit, Blood+Honey,
Eulogy Press, dadakuku, A Sufferer’s Digest, Horror Sleaze Trash, Synchronized Chaos & Bristol
Noir. He’s moved 35+ times & now lives near Gettysburg PA.
https://hankrules2011.com
@tangledscott