BODY IMAGE Poem: My Year of Consequences, by Rebecca Frankel

I sold a mouthful of teeth for breath reek, for rot, and for wreckage
For a set of ribs and a rate of exchange.
This was the conversion:
patience (substitute for suffering) is equal to lbs lost.
I dealt in irregulated heartbeats for a stomach I could
Bounce a quarter from.
Bartered a year of sugars, starches, stillness
For black coffee and bloodletting.
Months in the toilet with an acid spatter smile.
Punch the clock, hour fast by hour fast I was getting holier
Because I bought into the give and take of girls, of men:
The tears, the circumvention, and the currency of need.
I played roulette, I shorted the supermarket.
People have sold their souls for sillier reasons.

Now, they tell me that this was a crime. They tell me that I’m paying.
One year of penance for one year of pride.
Drill a tooth for every pound lost, every glance gained.
After all, I did some petty crime.
I used myself as collateral, slipped the noose of the “set point”.
And now, you all get to sit in judgement, critiquing my methodology.
Disavow my avarice all you want. Shake your heads all you wish.
I have but one defense:
The devil is a broker with an unbalanced scale and I was just
Trying to underweigh a feather.

Author: poetryfest

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