Fever Dream 💫
Fever Dream Podcast
Set Your Fat Bellies Free
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Set Your Fat Bellies Free

This came out of a fun writing prompt during a writing workshop tonight.

brown sand in closeup photography

Recorded audio for this one too because it feels very poem-like. So much of my writing happens with Chris in Laguna Writers workshops and I feel so lucky to be a part of that community. 💕

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I spent the last decade 
not searching, 
not kissing, 
not looking for anything I didn’t already have right in front of me 

I’m still coming out of a deep slumber really, 
sleepwalking through water, 
floating to the surface, 
seeing colors like a newborn 
feeling my skin like a teenager who just had sex for the first time 

It’s filling, overflowing, overwhelming    
too much at times 
like learning to live again 
like walking after a coma 
but there are new creaks in my bones now, 
and there’s a new story banging around my skull 

Is this how a butterfly feels being born? So much emerging, 
cocoon still stuck to her pretty wings 
when she’s just trying to fly away 
kick off the dust of the old 

When do I have to stop talking about it? 
When is it old news? 
When do I start to sound dramatic? 
When do they roll their eyes at the dinner table when it comes up again — 
Oh this again? She’s still rattling on about this? Can you pass the dinner rolls?

But I spent over a decade 
not feeling enough in my bones, 
not looking, 
there’s time to be made up for here 

Open all the windows, 
unlock the doors— invite them all in, 
the ones with the eye twitch and bad manners and loud laugh – if they can kiss 
I’ll take them    
the price of admittance a secret — a story that harmed you     
tell me how you got your scars and I'll show you mine   
because none of us are getting out of this house alive tonight and we may as well go down fucking and fighting and eating all the leftovers 

We're not counting calories anymore   
we’re letting our fat bellies be free    
we’re burying our faces in each other's sorrows— 
we’re drinking and eating and laughing and loving up every inch of this house tonight    
in every way we know how 
in every way they told us not to    
we’re doing it — 
we’re running free, chasing the sunset 
never coming up for air    

They’ll find us stuck in the sand in the morning 
our eyes closed    
small smiles pressed to our faces  
ants running over all our limbs   
we’ll die happy and full and 
empty 
of any regrets 
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Fever Dream 💫
Fever Dream Podcast
A home for my creative writing, lightly edited and mostly written in workshops.
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Christina Loff