The heat brings with it a sartorial guessing game,
a tricky type of trivia that sits itself down on my synapses
and squashes my brain.
Playing dress up in the evenings to help stave off ill-feeling the next morning.
Planning is my greatest ally – but even then it’s not always foolproof.
One reflection glimpse sends the sufferer into a spiral
crooked, wonky, wrong parting, poor posture
a cauldron of chaos and fiery fear
dirt-ridden disarray, shame at looking a certain way
and clothes that don’t hug but rather stifle my body
clinging like skin but foreign, alien
ill-fitting except on the rarest occasions.
In summer it’s strip off time, fewer opportunities for disguise
because legs come out, shoulders bear the air upon them,
shorts cradle thighs.
Finding some thing that doesn’t light the match of disordered thinking
is near impossible. And so there’s struggle and copious online orders
to soothe and improve but it never lasts
because trick mirrors are everywhere
and my mind remains in sabotage mode.
talking to my pillow. 