The best thing in the world
is when you can vomit effortlessly
without anything in your mouth.
You are quiet and clean
and can vomit while
you share a communal bathroom
with college kids.

Millions of winter trees, small and skinny
bend their broken branches to the bushes,
tainted with the smell of what didn't make it into the toilet.
The only girls who wear oversized sweaters
are the ones who think they are.
let me go to the bathroom are trigger words
and bloodshot eyes and the smell of vomit are worse.
But when you look like you just woke up,
they all know what you what you've done.

Your name tastes like the smell of pepper spray
and you are only half the satisfaction of almost
there
Just like that, I'll make you feel as unbeautiful as I am.
You make me my mom's defective daughter
but maybe I'm just a defective disordered eater
with various failed attempts and false weight losses.
You are convenient when you want to be
but you you don't care if anyone hears me in the bathroom.
You are my remote control that channels different feelings
whatwhenwherewhy
You tell others my business by producing bloody knuckles
that trigger my recovering piano teacher
and that awes the members of my step team.
I don't even know if you're better being digested
or better floating in a college toilet.
These life decisions evolve into
dailyhourlyminutelyeverysecondconstantlydoitnow decisions.

We're the ones who celebrate "Thirsty Thursday" everyday
and smoke Black and Milds till we drop.
We wreak havoc on the local residence
and we don't have a care in the world.
Jello shots are for First-Years
and we have our bottles as room decorations.
We fuck like nobody's business and then spread it like it is
because we're college kids and the RA's don't care!

I will slash broken lines through what would be red and white,
where words once were will never be again.

She is a plagiarized barbie doll,
or perhaps a bit better
with skin of porcelain,
and a soul of smashed china.
She stands unbroken but she'll eventually crack,
just like the mirror in front of her.
Her only flaw is her flawlessness
but it will get the best of her someday.

They always tell you to listen to what she is saying
but what about what she isn't saying?
Like the fact that she always feels dizzy
or that she can't control her fingers when she plays clarinet
or that she shaved her hair "to try a new look"?
I am fine.

I love riding in his taxi-car
with the sun invading our eyes and the wind, our hair.
Our days are filled with cold pizza and dirty jokes
and a friendship that is sort of a willingly mutual contract,
yet unspoken, unwritten anywhere.
We were meant to be together,
inseparable,
like two halves of a giant heart.
No matter where we end up,
our love will never fall apart.

You are a variation of a language so sweet,
the rhapsody of a never-ending love,
uninterrupted
like 3.14159...
or happy clouds in the sky,
transparent,
just like my feigned existence.
You are my desires,
smothered
into leftovers of this unwanted disease,
some of them, permanent.

Aim your dagger so carelessly
as I think of coffee grounds
and shaking hands
and how it smells of smoked barbeque outside.
Let it run across slippery fingers
as I lie here and wait
for another hour to pass
on a loud and empty stomach
and weak knees.
Be confident when it hits me
as it should lock me into a crave induced slumber
where I will dream of
all the things I will not eat today.

Your fiery personality feeds
my forever starving soul.

It's okay. I ate a few days ago.

Sometimes, you forget that your normal isn't normal
and then you slip up and give away your most prized possession,
Your Eating Disorder.

They say that life is nothing but a dream
but for me, it's a nightmare.
Possessive thoughts taunt and tease me every second possible,
snatching away every ounce of sound from my throat.
With my inability to cry for help,
I hurt myself to distract from the other pain
and when I run out of safe places to carve my SOS's,
I look for another way to get rid of the pain.
In another attempt to make it stop,
I purge my pain, but that's only a temporary relief.
With nothing else left, I wonder to myself,
If I die in my dream, will I wake up in reality?

It creeps on you like dawn's breaking
turning you into a whole new person.
At first, it's easy, but then you become obsessed,
losing the control that you never had.
It makes you too tired to go to your classes
and makes you pass out during your private lessons.
It makes you the World's Best Liar
and the World's Biggest Food Hoarder.
You become The Bitchy Friend
and That Anti-Social Girl Who Never Leaves Her Room.
And during your pain and misery,
you begin to reach your goal:
inch by inch, pound by pound.
It seems to forever disappear and you feel fine,
but then it creeps on you like dawn's breaking,
turning you into a whole new person.

You call them
heartstrings but mine
are threads slowly
wasting away to silly
string from years
of toxic relationships
with food,
cutlery,
and people.

Miranda left her door halfway open, just enough so that her half-sized mirror would show. I happened to walk past her dorm room one day and caught my reflection. But something was pulling my eye slightly downward. In purple it wrote, You are beautiful. I took a step back and looked at the entire picture - my face with a You are beautiful caption underneath. It made me cry, not because I struggle with my body image, but because in that moment in time, I could actually agree with the mirror. I cried because I wish that I could feel like that all the time. Miranda's mirror made me realize something: sometimes, you don't need people to tell you something - you just need to see it for yourself.

Whether you're a music major or minor
or just want to perform for fun,
you better be proficient on your instrument!
Whether you're in a top-notch conservatory
or some unfamiliar liberal arts school,
you're expected to sound like a  well-trained musician.
College freshmen got it hard
if they have a strict conductor who hates
the "typical high school sound".
And don't even think about missing a concert,
that is of course you don't mind having your instrument
play you, instead of you, it.
Make sure that you're on your conductor's good side,
unless you want your music experience to be a living hell.

You smell of popsicle sticks and green tea leaves,
reminding me of my childhood and summer's breeze.

Irregular slabs of meat
and cup-pressed mashed potatoes
invade plates of varying colors
while oil-slick knives poke holes into rotting bread.

Dangling from a cell phone charger noose,
he looks quite distressed.
His normal smile now hangs upside down,
just like the rest of his body.
His legs are thrown around in the most awkward positions,
even for a stuffed animal.
His orange coat is brighter than ever
but his spirit is forever burnt out.
Dangling from a cell phone charger noose,
he looks quite distressed.
Scruffy the Stuffed Dog
is now Scruffy No More.