Belt

My oversized jean is baggy like some guys swagging on the street showing off their superb taste in underwear, which I don’t have because my underwear was just as baggy and worn as my jeans. On top of the shame of having to wear my aunt's jeans, I never had a belt to hold the oversized jean up, which hung precariously on my waist and was ready to fall off. 

I thought about and mused upon and cogitated over it days on end like a true philosopher until the compromise had to be made quickly--I didn't have anything else to wear for that day (the state of which lasted my entire teenage years rippling into my stingy adulthood)--two shoe laces were tied together and became my belt. It was too thin and soft, holding up only parts of the belt loops and cutting into my flesh, but it did the job. My butt was secure and nicely stashed inside of the jeans, content like every other butt normally does. 

Now the trick was to swerve my way around humiliation for the rest of the day--long shirts were worn to cover up the waist, movements that involving lifting up my hands were avoided. I sailed as hard as I could to rise up from the agony of being laughably pitiful to the comfort of being ignorably poor. Unlike gay teens in the last few decades trying to pray away their homosexuality, I did not have the ambition to pray away the poverty; I simply aspire to be ignored. 

Well, I failed epically; as my own critical eyes were wide open and I hated myself to core and rind. For every inch of the shoelace belt was soaked in the venom of vicious prejudice and judgment, the harder I tried to hold my jeans up, the deeper it carved into my flesh.