Elephant legs

Elephant legs
That’s what your parents said
when you couldn’t fit clothes in Japan.

Skinny Bro
your youngest older brother

So you strove to be skinny too.

And you did, through work and exhaustion.

Then you had me
and all that went away.

Half a lifetime later you try to regain that image.

Commenting, comparing to others far from your frame.
To feel better? To feel superior?
To heal the trauma?

But I watch and listen to you
and absorb the trauma.
Stopped eating,
3 days during my first year away from home.
Obsessive about weight loss or gain.
15 pounds was the goal
The skinnier the better.

Now I can’t eat with people.

You continue your odyssey-
A salad a day keeps bloating and pounds away.
Exercising and working out

Not like your parents
Listen to yourself
Look at me.
Look At Me.

I workout twice a day. Thrice maybe.
Different ways to push myself
Different ways to “feel good”
though I’m gasping for air at the end.

That’s how I know I did it right.

Your trauma has turned into mine.
Passed from one generation into the next.
My self-image is forever tarnished,
because I let your trauma
traumatize me.