Fat

People are starting
To not look like people
Anymore.

You can see their knotted, purple veins
Through their translucent skin.
Their eyes are deepening caves,
And the light is gone from them.

They can’t run,
They can hardly bend over.
If they sit on the ground,
They’ll be stuck there forever.
It seems like so long ago,
You could see the beautiful people,
But they’ve made themselves
Unrecognizable.

And it’s so cheap to live this way,
It’s so cheap to die.
And living is only getting more expensive.
Being honest is getting a lot more dangerous.
The truth now has its own rising tax rate,
And if you want to live it,
No one is coming with you,
And it’s gonna hurt.

If you want to sit on the couch
And sit at a desk,
Collect a paycheck
And eat a little more each year–
Take a few more pills each year–
You’ll have more friends
Than you can count.
But I can’t live that way anymore.
I can’t live wanting to be loved.
What is that love even worth?
I can’t live for a system that everyone
Wants to get to the top of.

Imagine spending your whole life–
Training, running, reading, preparing
Your body and mind for the top of the mountain.
Imagine consulting every expert,
Every thinker with a thought to sell–
Any thought that will help you
Get to the top.
And your opportunity arrives.
You climb and climb.
You pitch a tent at dusk and rise
The next day,
Even before the sun.
You walk on popped blisters
And creaking tendons
And bruised muscle.
You see the blood and feel like
Life is coursing through you.
You climb rocks and rest in trees.
You walk through snow and ice and mud.
You break a bone or two, and you keep walking.
You barely sleep because you know
You’re getting so close,
And finally,
It’s that moment.
You reach the point
Where your days of climbing are done.
You look out across the expanse,
And see that you are the tallest thing
Standing in the empty world.
What is it worth?
Maybe they’ll give you a medal,
And you’ll be the steward of that medal
Until the day you die,
And your brother needs a few extra bucks
For his car payment.
And when he’s gone,
What will that be worth?

I suppose the only way
To fake the appearance of being sane
Where sanity is insanity,
Is to take great pleasure
In the vanities of the world.
It’s the only way to feel like you’re different
From everyone else,
While being exactly the same
As everyone else.
It’s the road to a million friends
And a million screams in hell.
What is it all worth?

A pause.
A moment.
Just a mere second of silence
Is worth more
Than a hundred-billion dollars.
Having no friends at all
Is worth more than a thousand friends.
A word spoken at just the right moment
Is of more value than anything you could find
In this whole world,
But the world won’t love it.
The world doesn’t like perfect timing.
The 30 year old woman who weighs
600 pounds
Cannot handle the child
Who sees her exactly as she is.
“Mommy, that woman is so fat!”
There is nothing more dangerous
Than the plain things
That go unspoken.

If most people are obese,
And most people are infertile,
There is no future for the world–
Only a slow, cruel, and indulgent death.
Society cannot remain stable
If the world’s blood sugar is out of control.
400 pound women with 600 pound children.
Birth defects. Autism.
Malfunctioning thyroids.
Slowed minds and weakened hearts.
Shopping carts with sugar on top of sugar.
100 pound twigs–
More like boys than men–
With girlfriends that are so round,
They can’t see their own toes
No matter what they do.
I see it every day.
And just like evil always does,
The sick will do anything to discredit
The very things that will heal them–
The people who lost the weight,
The change in spirit,
The secret of forgiveness,
The choice in food,
The rejection of the forbidden fruit.
Doctors serve as great drinking buddies,
And friends want you as you are,
So the sickness reinforces itself.

So if it pleases you,
Says the world,
Stay sick.

The world is so sick,
The greatest salesman in the world
Couldn’t sell it the cure.
To the world, the greatest thing about life
Is being sick.
But I have good news.
God knew it would happen,
And so he has a special place
For all the people who love their sickness.
And I suspect, that wherever people may go,
They will get exactly what they want.