Once
this was the fattest I’d been.
Now
it’s the thinnest I’ve been
(not really, but… y’know).
It’s all about context.

Over twenty years ago
I was just slightly heavier
than my current weight.
It was probably my greatest weight
but I had held it for a while.
It was my adult size:
two twenty.
I knew I was chunky
but I tried not to let it bother me.

I met a woman
and it didn’t seem to bother her
but other things did
and in only a few months
she was done with me.

It had an outsized effect
and I stopped eating
for a couple of months
and two twenty
melted into one eighty
which is the thinnest I’ve ever been
at this height.

With that weight
I felt some sort of confidence.
Confidence enough to eat again.
Confidence enough to continue eating
my way up
to three hundred pounds.

It took a while.
It took a month or three to lose so much;
It took a year or twelve to gain so much back.

But now
with meds
and a veteran’s eye
(but mostly meds)
I have found it in me to lose again
and I can sometimes see two hundred and ten.

It is not my best
– far from it.
I remember sliding into envelopes –
but it is far
– far far –
from my worst
and I continue to try.

Right now
that is good enough.