Breakthrough Session: Bulimic to Her Therapist

by Cesca Janece Waterfield

Doc, it's not about thin. That’s just

what everyone gushes: Girl,
you don't have nothin to worry about. They eye

my thighs, eschew the butter crust, and finger
a sensible grape. You know I don't come clean

with this stuff much, doc, but I been thinking:

This could be my claim to fame!
You ever heard of a gastro-renegade?
Picture it: Bonnie & Clyde squeal into dusty border towns
sitting high in a low rider caviar black Corvette
stopping once on highway 10 outside Alvarado
to slug mescal and make love like two wolves
tearing at the dark. Man, that worm don’t stand a chance.
They shock locals with lusty gropes
and the lambada. Bonnie is a real firecracker
with a taste for the strap, flair for flash,
and a bullet ride to rage -- WHAT did you say? The bar is closed?

and wham! Campfire roasted rabbit and bits of agave everywhere!
Clyde, of course, swoons for his furiously lanky lady,
aches to rub his licorice stubble over her stomach, smooth
as a Smith & Wesson. Bonnie plants a kiss on Clyde and they ride
off into a cinnamon desert, smothered in sun
orange as Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

Yeah, that's as good as me, doc,
a bonafide Gen-X quick draw.
I can unload a muffin or purge Mom's chops

with the flick of an acrylic-tipped index,
outside the subtle narrowing of Maybelline's envying eyes,
return to the clink of Wedgwood,
and dive into the brandy sauce.

You think I'm a victim, doc?
that I been dished up a short serving?
left with leftovers, so to speak? I just know
when I'm hunkered down over Lysol swabbed porcelain and tile
in a dinner-hour bathroom ablaze on Colley Avenue,
exhuming the lunch hummus,
recoiling from caloric OD, I smell
the burn of tires and hear the horn of that black Corvette.

It brakes hard and spits gravel. Clyde slides
the tinted window down like a silk slip

and whispers smoky as a single-malt,
She'll be scoping hits all night tonight.
Bonnie winks from behind the wheel,
you-go-sister approval for eating my cake

and hating it too, for blasting shotgun shells into the luncheonette
of my heart, for winning the shootout
in every woman's skirmish
with cellulite.

* * * * *

"Breakthrough Session: Bulimic to Her Therapist" was previously published in 2010 in Cesca Janece Waterfield's first collection, Bartab, published by Two-Handed Engine Press.