The Invisible People

For the "invisible people",
because it starts with one person caring...


It's my birthday next week,
but I don't want a cake.

All I want is a heaping pile of vitamins
fresh from the bottle,
their sickly sweet orange aftertaste
convincing my mind that I've already eaten.
I just want a nice steaming cup
of coffee (hold the cream and sugar)
to curb my appetite,
poured into that little half-cup
souvenir I bought in San Francisco.

All I want for my birthday
are the things that money cannot buy.

I want to be tall and slim and gorgeous.
I want ribs stretching against my snowflake skin
and razor-edged hipbones slicing through my palms
(a nervous habit of burning calories through friction).
I want double-jointed elbows with all the joints showing
and legs that the ocean could wade through
(eroding away that nasty fat).
I want triple-zero Levi's cinched two holes tighter,
and a pair of Dobby socks (mismatched the way he likes them)
to keep my toes warm in the frigid summer.

More than that, though,
I want truth and understanding.
I want awareness and healing.
I want world peace and an end to hunger.
Yes,
hypocritical as it seems,
I want an end to world hunger.

Much as I want to be weightless--
Much as I want to grow brittle bird bones (light as feathers)
so I can soar high above this platonic world--
Much as I enjoy counting ribs and measuring femurs--
--I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Because,
as much as I long to be thin
(rail thin so I can steam away on the California railroad),
there are people out there - children -
who would sell their right arm for the pizza crusts I hide,
or the morsels that I consume and purge.
Much as I long to be skeletal and slim,
there are children - people -
who long to be me.

So you know what I want for my birthday?
Awareness and understanding and action.
Maybe not for me, or you, or the boy down the street who binges,
but for them: the invisible people,
because no one's helping them
- or at least not enough.

Please,
I want action.

Give them my birthday cake,
And I'll take a vitamin dipped in coffee.