20080304

Size Zero

by Mercury

She would blame it on the party, she always did, the party when she stuffed herself silly on chips and sour Starbursts and pretended that when she laughed she was laughing the pounds away. When she got home she would still crave sweetness, so she would take the bag of chocolate-covered malt balls and hide it in her lap, eating them in slow intervals as if that would stop them from affecting her. Later, she would call up her friends and cry at how fat she was, pinching her extra flab mercilessly, and her friends would mindlessly console her, offering gentle crooning on how their bodies were worse then hers. She would hang up on them and their obtuseness and go to her closet for comfort instead, trying on clothes to see if they fit. Later, her mother would find her sobbing on the floor, clutching a pair of ultra low rise size zero skinny jeans they she "could fit into yesterday, so why not today," her heavily made-up face smeary with tears and running mascara. Her mother would stoke her back and offer soft words, but they would be empty; she has done this many times before.

6S

Mercury, author of Judgment, wrote this piece as she slowly ate chocolate covered malt balls. Nothing could get her to fit into size zero jeans, but she doesn't mind.