There I am: 2004, Kohl’s graphic tee, bangs
drying as I take notes from What Not To Wear.
Stacy peeks out from behind the contestant(?)’s body,
the inverse of a Cinderella mouse. She is here
to slice you up and shop you back together.
She flicks hard truths into the 360-degree mirror,
laughs like a dolphin, sprinkles enough “you’re worth it”s and
sympathetic head tilts to make people hug her as they cry
next to a trash can filled with all their clothes.
At commercial I tie my body to a swivel chair,
Pixar-ass lamp in its face, and make it make promises to me:
That it will drape, sway, disable soup can mode, pull off a drop waist.
My body says (sweating) And what if I can’t? and I slam the table,
lean in close, say you don’t want to make this any harder
like they do on TV. Stacy teaches us to dress the body we have,
which for the big boned means a structured blazer and dark denim
until you die. My body grovels, and I know
I will be sexy like the Kmart back-to-school commercial.
I see Stacy now on Instagram. She is in love with a woman,
wears loose pants, speaks kindly about menopause
into her front-facing camera. My body stunts in the ugliest
outfits I have ever seen. I don’t know what I did
with the swivel chair or the knife.
There I am: 2004, Kohl’s graphic tee, bangs
drying as I take notes from What Not To Wear.
Stacy peeks out from behind the contestant(?)’s body,
the inverse of a Cinderella mouse. She is here
to slice you up and shop you back together.
She flicks hard truths into the 360-degree mirror,
laughs like a dolphin, sprinkles enough “you’re worth it”s and
sympathetic head tilts to make people hug her as they cry
next to a trash can filled with all their clothes.
At commercial I tie my body to a swivel chair,
Pixar-ass lamp in its face, and make it make promises to me:
That it will drape, sway, disable soup can mode, pull off a drop waist.
My body says (sweating) And what if I can’t? and I slam the table,
lean in close, say you don’t want to make this any harder
like they do on TV. Stacy teaches us to dress the body we have,
which for the big boned means a structured blazer and dark denim
until you die. My body grovels, and I know
I will be sexy like the Kmart back-to-school commercial.
I see Stacy now on Instagram. She is in love with a woman,
wears loose pants, speaks kindly about menopause
into her front-facing camera. My body stunts in the ugliest
outfits I have ever seen. I don’t know what I did
with the swivel chair or the knife.