Poem [Lana Del Rey has collapsed!] by Julia C. Alter

"I love the storm of her body."

Poem [Lana Del Rey has collapsed!]
by Julia C. Alter

I am processing the tragedy of Skinny Lana. 
There’s a photo of her at peak juiciness, walking past 
a sidewalk sign advertising COOLSCULPTING. 
Gym shorts bunching up between her thighs. Her dimples 
of saddlebag cellulite, L.A. sunlight glazing the stubble 
fuzzing her calves. There is no rain in California. 
Who doesn’t want to kiss a dimple? A peach? 
A dewy-ass cheek? She’s holding a wax paper pastry bag, 
a creamy iced latte and her phone, blinking 
into the middle distance, mouth a glossy pout 
and fresh gel nails—ten cherries on top. 



&




the only thing that still fits me is this black bathing suit




&



As a pre-teen counting calories in my food diary, 
I never understood how my little sister ate 
those sundaes every night and stayed skinny. 
Three scoops of Ben & Jerry’s gilded 
with spoonfuls of Nutella, crushed Oreos, 
globs of Skippy peanut butter, Lucky Charms. 
Then I found the stash of laxatives stockpiled 
in her bathroom. Lucky charms.


&



I first learn about Ozempic from my friend Erica, 
whose laser technician tells her she can’t come back 

for more sessions since there’s no hair left
to laser off. She’s not on a GLP-1, but her friend is. 

Erica explains it to me—she just like, doesn’t get 
pleasure from food anymore. 

Pleasure—the revolt of it. I could gag on the word. 
A word that lives in someone else’s body.

But this was always the dream, wasn’t it? 
Someone else’s body? 	A “magic pill”? 

A shot that could make you not want 
food so badly? A shot that would make you 

smaller and smaller until you disappeared? 
Kate Moss’s infamous quote—nothing tastes as good 

as skinny feels. And invisible tastes even better—
the most delicious superpower. 


&


But I remember when my baby brother 
wanted his nanny Alexandra to hold him, 
instead of our 100-pound mother, because
Alex doesn’t have any bones. So boneless Alex
snuggled him, and gripped him 
slippery in poolwater in her functional 
one-piece, teaching him to swim, and gave him 
milk and tucked him in while our mother went 
to parties, played tennis, took the Concorde jet
to Paris, got herself down to a zero 
to fit into runway-sample Valentino gowns. 


&


Smaller and smaller 
until she fit 
in my father’s palm. 
He made a fist 
around her 
to keep her, but kept 
cheating on her, no matter 
how small 
and blonde she got. 


Down to a zero. 
It took her twenty-five 
years to say she was done. 


And still she says to me
you’re still hungry?
you’re already hungry?
you’re hungry again?

haven’t you had enough?


&


I am wrapping my arms around Lana’s sloping shoulders, folding into the type of hug only a woman who has really lived can give. A hug with no hunger in it. I am a baby woman, starting over, drooling on Lana’s cotton hoodie, nuzzling my nose into her neck, tugging on her thick braid. Thick everywhere. The thickness of women rubbing together. She smells like dirty roses and fresh cream. She holds me and whispers thick things to me: French toast, weed smoke, butterscotch pudding, a crowd of a hundred thousand singing your words back to you. 


&


I love the storm of her body, though I can’t 
forgive myself for my own thunder
thighs. Resolutely thick. Thick going 
into forty without an end in sight. 
Beefy legs, my son says, pinching 
them when I’m bending over 
with the Dust buster, sucking up 
fallen crumbs. The way I contort myself
to arrange these beefy legs 
in bathtub pics for my beloved 
to make them look leaner, though 
he loves them just like this. The right filter. 
The optical illusions we’ve mastered. 
We all thought we’d be skinny 
by now. Here we are, in America, 	
collapsing like a lung.


&


The only thing that still fits me is this black bathing suit


&


Oh Lana Del Rey we love you get up


&



Lana can you breathe easy now? 
You’re fifty pounds lighter, riding 
Jeremy’s airboat through the swamps 
of Louisiana. Lana, they say there’s no way 
you hit the gym—no way you did it naturally—
the housewives picking over your paparazzi 
photos like picking the meat off a rib. 


Skinny swamp queen, 
are you finally good, gliding 
through the humid marshes?
The alligators—closed-mouthed—clear 
a path for you today, but could snap 
you like a wishbone tomorrow.


Lana, you can’t write on an empty stomach.
How many songs will be lost to your starving?

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