This is not like a Hunger Games’ kind of dystopia where anachronisms crop up in a futuristic America. Fat is set today. The only difference is that America believes that it’s better to be thick than thin.

All guys want fatter girls.
All girls want to be fatter.
And all people have it ingrained in their skulls that fat is best.

Skinny girls stand in mirrors and curve their backs to puff out their tummies. They go to Shake Shack every day for a double and fries, fighting their whip-fast metabolisms. They wear clothes two sizes too small, and they cake on shimmering face powder to round out every edge they can see.

They are skinny girls like Amalie.

Fat is the story about beauty in all of its shapes and forms.
And I haven’t written it yet.

Grandma is withering away, and she knows it. She cringes climbing out of bed each morning; when she can’t stand sitting, but standing is worse. She counts down the clock to the end of each day. She picks up the phone to distract herself from the drone of the ticking. Four funerals this year? The contact book is slimmer. She calls the only bra that fits her “Party Bra” to prop a smile onto her gaunt face, her body weeping from its bones.

It’s no surprise that Grandma doesn’t want to spend her time “being painful”. That among the entree of pills for breakfast, she wouldn’t mind throwing an anti-depressant into the mix. It’s just another pill.

But she is still Grandma. A woman satisfied with the simplicity of the status quo and the comfort of normalcy. It’s this aging that takes away what she knows as her most meager essentials. That is what is killing her. Her body demands a new normal. That she summed up so succinctly: “the most I can do is protect my world as best I can.” Because right now,

Grandma’s world is falling apart.

“Just don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.”

You’re on a circle.

On it is written in thick, bold type,

Here is Superlative.

It’s blue, simple, surrounded by a limitless white canvas expanse.

You’re on this circle.

And you realize what it represents is happiness, joy and love.

And you also realize that it is not a circle at all.

It’s a pie. A wedge.

Not the pie that tugs at your heart and tastebuds with memories of apples, nutmeg and honey.

A blue, simple, tasteless, textureless wedge ticking. A clock. A chart. Shrinking.

And in this moment you are torn.

You are on the circle. You’re experiencing, witnessing, understanding the superlatives.

And yet the first thing on your mind is that it’s a wedge, not a circle. And it’s shrinking.

It’s shrinking and you know that if you spent your time concerned that it’s shrinking that will be all that’s been complete once the pie has run out.

It’s shrinking and you can’t help it.

It’s shrinking.

It’s

the superlative really that tickles you between your toes.

That you read the thick, bold lettering and believed in the superlatives. That’s what started it all.

To think that if you hadn’t read it and you simply were contented with occupying a shrinking circle pie wedge that you wouldn’t be concerned at all about the shrinking or the pie or the inevitable end but that it and you could

just

be.

I know it’s been too long.

But this isn’t named ‘In The Interim’ for nothing. I haven’t had a moment.

Tonight I’m making an exception to write. Just a little.

             I D O L S

There’s a beat. Twice. Thrice.

You know that chocolate syrup that hardens over icecream? A car crash?

Crack.

If I could draw a picture, I’d show you how I feel it at the bullseye of the target. An apple.

You know that the word ‘stunning’ is so true? Even faceless, voiceless, I find myself stunned. A human is never perfect they say. But what when their imperfection is perfection? Thud. A heartache and a serenade.

I’m dizzy. It drowns my head and fills the crevices and I feel it still.

I feel. Yet, I’m grounded and I know it’s not perfect. He’s not perfect. He’s human. He’s me, and he’s real, no dream.

Then I find myself dreaming.

I take a spoonful and wish the melting stops. Remember how that was yesterday.

It rings. My ears and the chimney weeps.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be Cinderella.