exclusively presented on September 30th
One thing I realized is you can't substitute vanilla for vanilla chapstick. It really ruins your girlfriend's birthday cake.
Everyone nowadays just plugs in their headphones to ignore people. I prefer the old-fashion approach of yelling "LEAVE ME ALONE".
Kissing in the rain may help you get to home base but kissing during a hurricane will definitely guarantee it. I don't remember if they allow you to share hospital beds though.
My chest slammed against the floor. Three. I was only able to do three push-ups. I could barely lift myself again even with the extra support from my knees. I had to do one more. At least one. My chest slammed against the floor once more. The carpet was soft against my face, cradling it like a mother would after their six-year-old child scraped their knees on the concrete. I was weak. I was pathetic. I was fat and deficient in testosterone. Although I was twice as old, I still cried like I was six that day. Why did I need to be strong? Why did I need to be able to do ten push-ups? Was it because my brother could do twenty? Was it because my dad grabbed my biceps tightly and exclaimed that I needed to work-out more? Was it because even though the tortoise eventually beat the hare in the story, I knew that I could never beat my brother in those impromptu push-up contests that my father would set up? I hated those silly moral tales that tried to teach you how the weak would eventually triumph over the strong. In every single one of those stories, the hero would always find an exploit or use some sort of cleverness, but tell me, how do you outsmart a push-up?
What I hate most about children is their need to constantly compete with each other. What made them worse, however, was that the only venue that they could compete in was physicality. The number of times that I had a red stinging mark on my face from losing a slap contest, was made fun of from kids high above for being too weak to climb a tree, or was pinned down by a person older than me (usually my brother) was amazingly astounding. Note: being chubby was always the reason why these things happened. Kids always wanted to prove who was stronger than the other. It’s not like they could compete in anything that required some sort of wit (you’ll never see a Norse-style lyrical battle on your local school playground). They needed something more practical and accessible. That’s not to say I was like a young Don Rickles, spouting out rapid insults like a sprinkler, but at least I might have had a better shot.
Yet, from the ages of twelve to fifteen, my physique never improved. Of course, I fantasized about it. In my dreams, the plaque said the Statue of Ruben, not the Statue of David. My brother, however, continued to surpass me in every way. While I was fishing through YouTube videos titled “How to Get a Six-Pack in Six Weeks” and forcing my throat to swallow kale smoothies, my brother gained twice the muscle mass after he came back from his Marine Corp training. It didn’t seem like any number of push-ups I did would ever change this dynamic. There were scribbles in every journal entry saying “this is the time that I’m going to lose weight and be happy!” As if those two things went hand-in-hand, but in my adolescent mind, it was the only thing that mattered.
In the summer of 2016, however, I assembled a treadmill in my room that had once belonged to my mother who had a similar far-reaching goal to mine. Although its smell of sweat from those who failed their goals intimidated me, I had gotten it into my head that if I never stepped on it then I might as well start shoving Krispy Kreme donuts into my mouth and jump into a coffin at the age of twenty-nine. The daunting treadmill growled as its track started moving slowly. “Well, here I go. I’m going to finally get skinny” I repeated as the droplets of sweat began to trickle from my forehead. Five minutes had passed before I felt like my legs were walking through quicksand. It wasn’t that I was out-of-shape, in fact, it was something that always plagued my weight-loss attempts: I was bored. Working out just wasn’t fun and because of this, your legs just couldn’t get up after ten steps. The frustration kicked in as my walking resembled that of a midnight drunk. “Why can’t you do this? Would you rather keep eating and sleeping instead of trying to get skinny?” It didn’t matter. I was still bored. No matter how many times I pumped my hands up after playing the Rocky theme song or how many people from the Biggest Loser I compared myself to, I groaned with every step. This frustration grew as I began switching to more “healthier” food alternatives: regular milk to soy milk, white bread to wheat bread. Instead of having vibrant juices and drinks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I started to chug down bland, tasteless water. Anything that wasn’t water was these chunky, sewage-green liquids that made me consider cutting out the middleman and just eating the soil. I gagged the first day I started, and I continued to gag up to the final day. It was insufferable until one day my mom said, after seeing me try on a new shirt she got me from Target, “wow, you’ve gotten really thin!” I smiled with ecstasy. I dashed back into the bathroom. I’ve done it. The Holy Grail was finally in my hands. However, I stopped smiling when the mirror saw my body without a shirt on. I still had some rolls, these muscles weren’t tight, the skin on my belly was loose and fatty. I grabbed my love-handles and sighed.
“You don’t need to lose more. You should be proud! I have a couple of kids who have similar weight problems, maybe you could give them some advice.” my doctor advised me after showing me my progress on a graph that had too many lines to keep up with. I smiled at him in his pale, white office and frowned as he left to grab a few more documents. How could I be proud of these pathetic rolls of fat? Didn’t he realize that I was still overweight? Wasn’t “hey, you look great” just a remark that signified that I should keep losing more? Were all my exes just giving me pity as they tried to convince me that I had a great body? I continued to lose hours out of my days because I kept looking at nutritional labels in Sprouts. “That’s too many calories” echoed every time I saw a number over one hundred. That reminds me, I probably should’ve only eaten one over-easy egg instead of two. An over-easy egg has about a hundred calories. If I keep eating like that then I might as well start shoving Krispy-
I’m always one step away from rebounding. I’m always one step away from being that fat, weak, and pathetic kid that could never keep up with everyone else. I’m always one step away from my dad grabbing my biceps and telling me that I need to do more push-ups. I know a lot of people envy my “willpower” but it’s easy to refuse every meal when you’re repeatedly telling yourself that your pants are already too tight. I don’t feel proud of this mindset even when my mom begs me to reveal my secrets so she can stop doing juice cleanses. Unfortunately, I can’t tell her to force her legs to walk on the treadmill because it’s lost within the clutter in our musty shed. Whenever I do feel good about myself, it’s never when my dad tells me that I’m strong and fit, but when he prances around about how I’m going to walk the red carpet for winning an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. This isn’t to say that I’m not happy that I finally managed to lose twenty pounds. I’m glad that I was able to pull through even when the voice in my head would make me salivate at the sight of a crispy strudel with vanilla ice cream. However, what’s the use of all this progress if my mind only sees in the mirror the fat kid who couldn’t do ten push-ups? I wonder how often after the race did the tortoise yell at his reflection because he knew he was still too slow. I’m not sure but I know he would have been able to enjoy a chicken Caesar salad wrap even though it’s got four hundred calories and twelve grams of fats.
Do not eat the crickets at Petsmart. They are not free samples.
I enjoy going to open houses, but I must say, it's much more thrilling going into closed houses. I find that they feel more lived-in.
Before coins, people used to just flip themselves. You did not want to land on heads.
An old dog snores on
the warm, smooth wooden floor. Its
closed eyes and wet nose
twitch, as its legs run with youth
inside a large field of dreams.