Nov 21, 2023
The fantasy Olivia
Who is
~ * Thin * ~
Uses that body to the extreme
She rides fast horses
And not even just that
She can stand on their backs
Without hurting them
Doing trickshots with guns
That I also know how to use
Once my fingers shrink
To hold them.
The thinness I imagine is incredibly healthy
But it has nothing to do with avoiding heart attacks
Or looking sexy.
I don’t want to count calories if my biggest goal
Is to fit into a dress
Into someone’s arms
Into an ideal
To fit easily into a world that would then
Just find another insecurity to expose
I want to be the fittest person alive sometimes
Only I’m too scared to join the marines
And I don’t want to use my fitness
To kill
(the guns are just for show)
I want to be the fittest person alive
So I can leave.
Going into space
Is the ultimate fuck-you of fitness
And John Glenn is my inspiration
Losing thirty pounds to fly to space
Jogging every day so he could go up there
Into the vastness just once
Then again aged seventy-seven
He kept it that tight
For us, all that time
John Glenn is the fantasy:
He experienced his weight times eight
But also the freedom
Of anti-gravity
The knowledge that he goes down in history
As the one with the morals and
Iron-clad weight-loss routine
John Glenn is the fantasy:
So fit he could run for office
And win.
John Glenn is the fantasy
Adoring wife – childhood sweetheart
Adoring children – one boy, one girl
A bedrock of absolute normality
To push off from to reach
Adoring public – parades, medals, museum
And underneath his shirt honest-to-god
All-American Apple-Pie-flavoured
Abs
Weight-watchers should sell
Diet space-food with his face on it
There should be a John Glenn challenge
On The Social Media
Gyms should keep pictures of him
On their walls
And we can all
Blame obesity on NASA
Cutting the space-flight programme:
None of us have anything to aim for anymore
If we’re stuck on Earth
We might as well
Really weigh ourselves
Down.
John, I’m losing maybe one pound a week
On a good week
And lately,
That’s a really good week
It’s hard to keep going with nothing waiting for me
At the end of the journey but another journey
Called maintenance
I’m fighting my fight at least three times a day
With no one at my side but a shredded ghost.
John Glenn I call on you
To stop my hand on its way to my mouth
As it tries to stopper up the sadness
And instead feed me stories
About seeing four sunsets in one day
And running on the beaches of Florida
Filled with hope.
Olivia Payne is a librarian working in London. She's an alumnus of the Faber Academy and proud member of the Write Like a Grrrl community. She's previously had work published or forthcoming in places including Uncharted, The Amphibian Literary Journal, Cobra Milk, Ellipsis Zine, Corporeal, Alphabet Box, Sonder Magazine, and the Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.