I cannot watch another film
Filled with wispy heroines
And their ‘to die for’ figures
Those dreams were snuffed out
Alongside Diana’s candle in the wind
Like Havisham’s Estella
They are conceived in spite
To break lonely hearts
No, give me a fat-hearted flick
With plaster food on every table
And I will feed my soul
In comfort
What are we to do these days?
Eating is our latest craze.
People suffer dreadful guilt
Over sustenance they’ve spilt.
Yet food is not in short supply
So I don’t understand the why:
Some stuff their faces, comforting
While others starve just to stay thin!
No, I just cannot fathom it
Such depth of feeling over shit.
Where once we ate to stay alive,
Fed our bodies to survive;
Now boutique-style, we pick and choose
And body-mass we vow to lose.
Each New Years Eve that comes and goes,
We weigh ourselves and try on clothes
To chart our progress over time
And wail about our new waistline.
I’ll never get the reason why
Some choose to eat and some to die.
Katherine Shirley 