by Polana Fehu

Created on: June 13, 2009

Body Image.

Lying in the warm water I looked down at my body.

The light refracted in the water, distorting what I see, my hips squelched in to fit the bathtub and my breasts flopping on either side of my chest, floating just under the surface.

I close my eyes and allow myself to be carried away.

I visualise the hot soapy water melting away my fat, its fragrance stripping my body to the bones.

I open my eyes and I am thin now (all it took was positive thinking.)

I rise from the water, my fat sliding away, cleansed of my former self, absolved of the sins of greed, excess and gluttony and dissolved of my obesity.

My stick-thin legs climb tentatively over the side of the bath, as I learn to stand and walk again as a new woman.

Their frailness buckles under the weight of my spine and I crumple into a pile of oily swigs on the bathroom floor.

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