AS TWEETED BY LADY GAGA...
Written and performed by Caroline Rothstein; filmed by Alex Budman, August 2011 outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE | 09/28/2012 | Lady Gaga ignites ex-New Trier student's eating-disorder video on YouTube view article
MTV NEWS | 10/09/2012 | Lady Gaga's Body Revolution: Little Monsters Speak view article
PENN GAZETTE | 10/31/2012 | 'Alumna’s poem video goes viral — with help from Lady Gaga' view article
"Fat" appears in Caroline Rothstein's chapbook "What I Learned In College" (2006), available here.
Fat
By Caroline Rothstein
I am not fat
It took me twenty-two years to purge words onto a page the same way I purged my body into stomach ulcers, popped eye blood vessels and missing tooth enamel
Twenty-two years to tell the tale of my bulimic, anorexic, and disordered eating hell
And I’ve walked barefoot through tiled deserts of bathrooms to find a mirage of my distorted body image staring up at me from the tainted water in the toilet
I used to daydream about freedom
I used to daydream about fueling my body and appreciating the abundance of food around me
I used to daydream about eating dinner without wanting to kill myself
And that like the society I wish to heal and explain I too someday would change
So I’ve unchained the melody of my dirge sung soul
And patched layers of karmic candle wax to mend the stomach holes
I am free
Free from sneaking out of algebra and trigonometry to vomit elegantly into the toilet paper filled toilet during a busy passing period period so that no one could hear me
Free from credit cards that pay for wasted food crumpled into white garbage bags in the gutter across the street from my driveway
Free from dry skin and shedding hair, bleeding skin and death scares
Because food gave me power to inject order into a world of chaos
Food gave me the love and security I was afraid to find in my sexuality
Food could remedy the abandonment I felt from my father’s excessive traveling to make the excessive amounts of money I would vomit in the toilet
But this is not a poem about struggling through thousands of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners when thousands struggle without breakfast, lunch, and dinner
This is not a poem about millions of tears as my fear encrusted fingers lay mangled, shaking, twitching on the bathroom floor with insecurity when millions of innocent children are held captive shaking with fear and no security
This is not a poem about the guilt of a privileged disorder because I was often told that I was selfish for an uncontrollable negative force coaxing me to stick my fingers down my throat
This is a poem about context
About how I can’t formulate linguistic ink blots to tangibly articulate the deadly pain that lived inside of me
About playing Russian roulette with my esophagus as my gun barrel fingers triggered tragedy down my throat
About self-deprecating stares in the mirror of a red-faced terrorist hijacking my digestive system from within
About how my eyes have learned to make love to the lower left corner of my torso
About how the sun sets in the crevices of cellulite of my thunder thighs
This is a poem about the regurgitated traumas that I cannot digest
And at best
This is a poem about how I am not fat
Copyright © Caroline Rothstein, 2006. All Rights Reserved by author. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express or written permission from author is strictly prohibited. No excerpts may be used without express or written permission from author. Links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Caroline Rothstein with appropriate and specific direction to this original content.