Venting Frustration
Every now and then we all get down and have different ways of dealing with it. For the most part of my life, that's been eating. Some people turn to alcohol, others to drugs, and still others do more obscure yet self-destructive things. I turn to food. Both my grandmother and my mother always portrayed food as a central item to the family unit and a full family was a happy family. Perhaps that's where I got the idea.
But I took it too far. Food became an escape, a self-indulgent method of forcing happiness upon me when I didn't know how to obtain it another way. This has led to my obesity and to the need for bariatric surgery. I just tried to vent my unhappiness another way -- through writing -- and it seemed to work so perhaps after forty years I'm finally catching on. I'm certainly no poet but what I wrote kind of turned into something like a poem. I looked at what I wrote and, while it is indeed personal, perhaps putting it here for people to read might help others like me change before they get to the point I'm at. So here it is, and don't judge it too harshly...
It's 6 o'clock in the morning
and I struggle to breathe;
my lungs, flattened by the
cheese enchiladas with the sour cream on top
are almost not up to the task.
My panic attack subsides now
as I ponder how my life got to this;
no food is worth this misery, this pain
and yet my mind flashes back
to those dry rub ribs with the cole slaw and the good beans,
you know the ones I mean.
My life is now one string of problems
with endless suffering and woe caused by
two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce,
cheese, onions, pickles on a sesame seed bun;
I did it to myself, eating all of those
double Krystals with cheese and bacon.
I've always run to food when I'm unhappy, like the time
when the girls made fun of me and I ate two chocolate sundaes;
or when nobody wanted to go see a movie on Friday night
and I wound up watching one with a jumbo bucket of popcorn
and a box of Whoppers.
My marriage fell apart
and I buried it under guacamole and quesedillas;
my mother died
and I buried it under lasagna, spaghetti, and fettucini alfredo;
I'm going to die
and I'll be buried under dirt topped with grass.
The truth is that I'm already buried
under spaghetti casserole with cheddar cheese on top,
under pork tamales with rice and refried beans,
under veal parmesan with a side of spaghetti,
under sesame beef with egg rolls on the side,
under my lack of willpower,
under my inability to keep from stuffing food in my mouth,
under this little child crying for love and acceptance.
My God, what have I done to myself?
