Body Swap

She’d gone on her own to the party,

But sadly, for she was alone,

Her partner had left her in limbo,

Had not even said he was going.

A month had gone by, with never a word

And nothing to say why he’d gone,

She looked in the mirror for why she was spurned

But life, as it does, carries on.

 

Nothing had changed in her that she could see,

She still had her beautiful hair,

Her lips were as full as they ever could be,

Her eyes had that hypnotic stare.

Her figure was slim, and as firm as it was

When her partner decided to leave,

If there was a problem, it had to be him,

Which left her no reason to grieve.

 

The party she went to was stranger than strange,

With Bogans, Goth make-up and Greens,

She guessed that their ages for most of them ranged

From middle-aged matrons to teens.

A pair of Goth sisters were eyeing her off

And flattering her, to deceive,

‘My, there is a beauty, the best of the lot,

I’d fit her, I think, with a squeeze.’

 

They twittered and tittered between them, the two,

Whose beauty had long gone to seed,

Whatever they’d had, it was plain that it flew

When excess took over from need.

They fed her with drinks and exotic confects

That she hardly liked to refuse,

Her hold on the present was slight, I reflect,

Her sadness was yesterday’s news.

 

The ugliest sister, whose name was July,

Rolled in like a mist to her brain,

The cunning of eyes and a whispered surprise

Made her think she was going insane.

She felt herself ebbing, and losing control

As July held her hands in her own,

And then somehow gelling with tissues and cells in

Some fatness that she’d never known.

 

She watched through a mist as the girl she had been

Laughed loudly, and then turned away,

Embracing the sister, that other unclean,

‘We’ll get you one, some other day!’

Her body felt loose, like an oversize suit

And her lips could but slobber and cry,

‘What have they done to my beautiful youth,’

As she turned to a mirror, to cry.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[ANTO]

I swear - this - this is what happened to me!!
I was only 18 yesterday and now Im 46. xD

I could see so many of your poems being made into series after series of 'Strange Tales' - visual vignettes for TV. This is a very strange one. Y'see the party you painted here; I'd have been out of there in a flash Bogans or no Bogans - well... maybe just the one... lol

"I'd fit her, I think with a squeeze" - I didnt know where THAT thread was going - I need to see Father Murphy for confession lol.

Brilliant DLP - still top of the class mate !

[Marie]

I was once 18, and I'm glad I'm not any more.

[ANTO]

I know what you mean Marie - we tend to romanticise that time of life but it was very hard if we are honest with ourselves - such a difficult age. How about being 18 with the wit of our age now but - that would be better! ;)

[Marie]

But part of the fun of being 18 is not knowing what the world is like, learning it. My age has always suited me.

[TPK Stories]

Your tales sound like plots for the Twilight Zone-ish stories!

[TL Boehm]

Do you remember the song "mama told me not to come" - that's going through my head as I read this delightful macabre poem. "some fatness she'd never known" yeah. I think that happened to me - I've got all this fluff, and I don't know why.
Well done!

[MomzillaNC]

Another of your delightfully twisted tales! You create wonderful visuals and characters in your twisted horror tales.

[Marie]

THey weren't just Goths but witches, and she drank the wrong thing. But if her resolve had been firm they couldn't have changed her so; no one can control you mind unless you let it go.

[R Smith]

I'm with Anto on this one, I was 18 and now i'm 66 lol, this is your imagination run riot David, you have a future in the horror genre if only you want to take it, just amazing work :)

[Barbz]

Mirror Mirror on the wall, Pagets Goth caused beauty's fall. She, then told the other one, Her Body Swap will soon be done. Vived tales, imagination, scores of epic fascination. Fun, but chilling read.......Barbz

[Ehra Khan]

I just took an amazing ride, reading this! Your rhyming is so light yet deep! Snd you ship the situation from one to another, so subtly and the reader is quietly transported to different perspective. Lovely read sir! :)