I cannot stand it any longer. My walls have fallen, my patience vexed. The final name is painfully struck from my list of the trusted. A sharp tongue ends it all.
I am alone and I am growing tired of my own venom also. I cannot manage alone, and I cannot survive at home, it is merely a nest, which cossets my abuse, and raises it to be stronger.
I am nothing but my adjective. It is my name, my identity, my being; and I detest it. But I am a man, and can tell nobody. Men solve problems. I cannot BE the problem.
I will never be loved, until I am something else. I am the broken toy, an error to be discarded.
I make a decision in my mind. I will fight my failure, so that I might become something other than a punch line, more than the adjective that has plagued me since my youth. I can no longer be fat.
* * *
I lie awake, scratching at my waist, where the skin pulls tight across my wretched bones. I toss and turn, battling my thoughts. Why can’t I be what I was? Surely nothing can compare to this? But remember the pain for which you chose this?
I have found ways of numbing such encounters with my conscience. This morning I awoke in the hallway. Yesterday slumped across the kitchen counter, but tonight I will stand up to my demons, and maybe win, maybe lose.
I am happy. I am happy. I am happy.
* * *
Four days. Four days of tugging at my hair and praying it might end. A pain so sublime that not even time can numb it. Another failure. I see no solution, but then again I barely see a thing nowadays. I AM happy.
* * *
I sit beside the brook, clutching my head. If only I could pull my brain away from my being. But what would be the point? They are equally abhorrent to any thinking man. I am pointless. But one waking hour sends me into a haze of migraines, collapse and nightmares.
My mind races. It races around the day’s event. Cooked breakfast and not enough movement: a failure. My in-tray is full. The letters spew from the letterbox. The message is booming from the earth. You will never be enough…why even try?
I scrabble around for the final solution. I find a rock. I assume it to be sharp and heavy enough to break bone. I hand it between my limp, tired arms, and succeed in lifting it above my head.
I lift it again, and hold it there. The ado of life is too much, but somehow I cannot follow my heart this time. I lay the stone down, and begin to weep, but I feel that soon my tears will run dry.
* * *
I no longer want to die. But I have no desire to live. The weight of this loathsome soul is too heavy around my neck, but I could not bear to hurt my family so. I run the scene over again and again in my head, as my family gather around my grave, and each time moves me further from the act. Thus I drift between vague and bleary scenes in a tasteless tragedy as people offer condolences. I may as well be dead; I am a character whose lines are written.
* * *
I find myself in search of the God who I seem to have lost touch with. In an uncanny moment of lucidity, a figure speaks from a stage, and although my decaying eyes cannot see her, the words she speaks speak directly at me. She speaks of love and grace, from the almighty God who I seem to have forgotten. I AM Loved. My failures ARE forgiven. I AM enough. In his eyes at least. But what more is there? My frail frame leaps with joy, as the notion hits me: God loves me enough to pursue me. He has followed me into the depths of despair, with the aim of pulling me out to be his son again. The mist lifts on my soul. My body and mind follow months later. I am not fat. I never will be in God’s eyes, and who cares what anyone else thinks. I have the ultimate affirmation that I am blameless and that I am loved. I am happy. I am loved. I am happy.
Distance 