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?
Might be the most amazing poem I've read this year. Thank you for it
Wow. Just fucking wow.