Flaw Salad

Today, as every day, began with a lecture. Usually silent, sometimes aloud, she spent the dawning minutes of each day—long past nature’s dawn, a source of much censure—chiding herself on the habitual failures she would not, on this new day, repeat. Today’s scolding came from her right hand, which traveled down her torso and squeezed at the skin spilling onto the bedsheet beneath her. The grip was a reminder of how much work she had to do, how much resolve she needed to get back to that place, that glorious and happy place, where her skin stayed taut against her abdomen, filled with muscles and skimming across beautiful, protruding hips. As she clawed at her flesh, she remembered the men who loved those hips, who grabbed them with glee—or urgent seriousness, as was the preferred style of several. Her hand searched for the beloved bones and found handfuls of dough.

Today would be different. It was her morning mantra, but even as she told the lie, she doubted herself. Where would she find this new resolve, and what had changed since yesterday, which had also begun with good intentions?

She had made monumental changes in her life before. She had decided to be better, then acted on her decision. It was a source of pride that once she could clearly recognize a problem, she would fix it. Yet it had been months now of the same. She knew her shortcomings all too well, and her life was riddled with plans to fix them. Still, nothing changed. Days blurred into weeks blurred into months, and she could hardly point to an accomplishment in the past two years that made her proud or happy or better or alive. She was just the same overfed drunkard who slept til noon, made no money, and kept waiting for things to turn around.

After pressing her snooze button a fourth time, she searched her mind for a reason to get out of bed. No one was waiting for her. No one would miss her. No deadlines needed to be met. Her day would consist of a walk to a different place—a desk in an office she couldn’t afford but that she hoped would prove motivational—so that she could feel lost elsewhere for a while. She would converse with a friend or two, and for a few fleeting moments of human connection, she would feel something akin to happiness. Then the office bell would ring, and she would return to the apartment she could never keep clean, which had acquired an odor she found oppressive at each homecoming.

Once home, she would lose all motivation she had mustered on the walk, and her nightly caloric justifications would begin. Her feelings of helplessness about the state of her apartment would compound as she sank deeper into the sofa-dent created by her ever-growing ass. Shame would inspire consumption, and she would lose herself in half-hour segments of tired jokes, promising herself action at the conclusion of this next one, this next one, this next one.

Bedtime would arrive, but closing the day would mean closing the opportunity to cross at least one item off her myriad, scattered lists. She would stave off the finality of bed without moving toward accomplishment of any kind. Then night would turn to morning, and with familiar dejection, she would reinsert herself into the dirty sheets.

Setting her alarm would be an exercise in hope, and as she drifted into dreams, she would imagine all the ways in which tomorrow would be different.

Tomorrow had once again become today. She lay with her hand still clasped around her belly and begged some hidden corner of herself to please, just this once, let today be different.