i found stretch marks on my body the other day
i started slapping at them as tears ran down my face.
"i am okay."
"i am recovered."
"they dont matter"
but now all i can think about is what men will think of the red streaks on my hips and legs
how i wont be pretty anymore
ugly.
so effing ugly.
"i am okay."
"i am recovered."
"they dont matter"
they're natural, but i wouldnt have gotten them if i didnt gain a drastic amount
i cant see past them.
i weighed myself again, too.
"i am okay."
"i am recovered."
"they dont matter"
theres more coming
i see more everyday
i cant wear bikinis anymore
i cant have *** anymore
i want to rip off my skin.
"i am okay."
"i am recovered."
"they dont matter"

these are not monsters. there are no monsters here.
these feel like love, and when they enter you
they feel like something that was once missing is finally home.
how could monsters make such pretty girls?
such pretty girls,
such pretty skinny girls,
they look like the most glamorous parts of life. like everything
that is wonderful about being alive,
like diet cokes
and pictures of hip bones on a sunny, sandy day at the beach
here i am and all i’ve eaten for the past three days is my own fingernails
and these not monsters
can make you beautiful too.

you’ll learn to make jokes about why you’re cutting
the banana you brought for lunch
(and breakfast, and dinner)
into thirty-five pieces.
bringing the tiny pieces to your mouth from
folded napkin with exquisite fingers
to tentative tongue
and when the jokes become too unmanageable,
and taste too much like sustenance,
like letting go, like pleasure,
learn to put a stand hold to lunch,
forget what it means and
by the end of your senior year
you’ll know every spot in that school of yours
where no one will ask where your peers are
and why you look so tired,
and so sad


the not monsters
will tell you all their secrets.
you’ll learn that toothpick thin bones, when crushed
into ashes and stirred into
the twenty, thirty, forty glasses of water you planned on drinking today
taste like sweet, sweet lemonade
and you can drink it
for only the cost of the rest of your waking life spent praising
the feeling of emptiness
looking up number after number
and dead girl after number
you, too, can spend the rest
of your day smelling of what
you just had to flush down the
bathroom toilet.

go, they will tell you,
boney shaking hands, bottle cap wrists
make sure to memorize menus and all the lies you will have to tell
spend hours at the grocery store obsessing and counting
fifty
one hundred
two hundred
no more than three, of course
or else your thighs begin to blow up like the balloons
from all the parties you could never go to
you will learn to avoid celebration
because celebration means food
cake, chips, soda, foods you simply cannot consume
you will spend christmas day
dreaming about burying
your dissolving teeth into your knuckles and biting at your shirt
until your heart stops.

the not monsters
will feed you your first cigarette
and your second, and your tenth.
they will leave your once healthy and shiny hair
in a clump
on your pillowcase, just for you.
in your friends hand, while being braided.

and when your body gets too frail,
it starts to fall apart,
but where sick breaks skin
flowers will grow.
an entire garden will rise and grow
itself from your empty, malnourished stomach
rippling out your mouth and you’ll choke on the flowers
but you’ll be joyous
because at least you’re not consuming calories.
you’ll disintegrate
until you cannot be seen differently
from all the skeletons that are currently
living in your closet
don’t you just wish you could shrink
don’t you wish you could have that control
don’t you just wish you could make nobody know about this
because they just don't get why you’d do this
you don’t get why you’d do this
you’re so so smart but you just googled
how many calories are in mouth wash
the pretty girls
pretty skinny girls
pretty dying girls
pretty dead girls
the parasite can be restrained but it cannot not destroyed.
but it does not even matter.
it’s a beautiful thing to be made of porcelain. to be fragile. delicate. beautiful.
the picture of your hip bones at the beach was worth it.

you were literally my soul mate in a friend
why did you have to do this
why did you have to treat me so bad
and I took that **** for so long
because I thought you were my best friend
it hurts
it hurts
it hurts
and now you’re a poem

im sad because my brother leaves again in a few weeks and i only saw him twice
im sad because i never had a dad
im sad because i "recovered" and i hate myself more than before
im sad because my medication doesnt work
im sad because i have no money
im sad because im not good at anything
im sad because i have no culture
im sad because people are uninformed
im sad because im sick
im sad because im being invalidated and told to just "get better"
im sad because everything feels like its falling apart
im sad because i have no god
im sad because im lost
i wish i could disappear
i wish i could find a way
to make a way

its christmas and the only gift i want is to lose weight

“You will never regret recovery.”
I am regretting every minute of it.

dear someone I love,
i'm so angry
maybe not at you but at myself
because you didnt reciprocate my love for you
your love was lust
but the way you kissed me I swear you loved me back
but all this talk
all these comments
were just a desire to be something other than lovers
and it hurt... hurts, so bad
because I think I did love you
you were like a day off from work for the first time in months
a sip of orange juice in the morning
a stormy day after it hadnt rained for too long
and I needed your desire
but you did not need mine
"I'm sorry. I didnt know"
neither did I.
why can't anyone love me and want me the way I do for them?
you'd cancel on me
and that's when i knew
you didnt, and dont, love me back
and you never will.

she told me it would be okay. that everything would work out.
that i could lay in summers green grass, gazing into the blue sky.
she told me it would stay sunny, she didnt say fog would arise and clouds would start to cover.
she told me it would help me thrive, give me wings and grow flowers.
but when the wings grew they were broken. the flowers made me choke. i couldn't fly, i couldn't breathe.
the sky was all grey and she told me to keep going, there would soon be blue.
she would mend my broken wings with starvation and watching other people eat all the food i could not have.
she told me the flowers choke me to control me.
she was right.
she rubbed my wings with all the oils i kept out of my diet and they did heal.
but every time i would place food onto my tongue, or something other than diet drinks to flush my system, she would break my wings again and the grey would come back.
she'd reach down my throat and cut the flowers with shears of fire. standing above me as i screech in pain. waving them at me, yelling, "look what you have forced me to do."
so i walk with dead flowers and broken wings until i serve her again.
then she shows me a chart of all the food i haven't eaten in that week and applauses me.
i am tired.
i am in ******* pain.
but i am happy.
she heals me once again.
my flowers again choke me as they bloom, and i can fly.
my wings, stained with blood and tainted with scars.
I don't need food.
she told me that food is my enemy and food will only cause a disturbance.
but i am being sent away now and they are making me eat and ai am really unwell and doesn't she think that its about time?
i put the food in my mouth and finish one hundred percent.
she violently grabs my wings and pulls me to the ground.
one by one she plucks the flowers, i feel for my wings, where are they?
she told me, "don't you understand how much we have sacrificed?"

my grandmother is dead and it is my fault
turns out the eating disorder doesn't just **** only you.
...
stressful.

all the birthdays i've missed
but all i'll gain

i am not yet accustomed to this world
i want to go back again and make things better
for my heart aches knowing where everything was left
but it is already too late
too many mistakes were made
and i don't think anybody can forgive me
if i were to begin again i would do it right
for my life would have been different.
my life would surely be better.
but i can't
i will never have that opportunity
why? why? why? i am so ashamed
i am so embarrassed
i am so dreading the winter's cold; i will never understand why i do this to myself
for all things born into this world can be happy. so why can't i?
my body is both cold and lifeless as i ride down into deep seas. but when it reaches the bottom i dwell,
and i don't enjoy beauty from my past.
the dark is scary. but it seems to be endless
i will die in pain
i will always remember my past as a great tragedy. and when i crumble, remember, i am sorry

Did you know there are more than 500,000 homeless people in America?
A quarter of them children.
Boston has one of the highest homeless populations in this country.
1 in 8 Americans live on an income that put them at risk for hunger.
Do you know how hard it is out there? Do you know how easy it is to be homeless? And how people look at them with shameful eyes?
You're 47 and you just got fired from your job cause it's overstuffed you missed rent for two months, momma isn't gonna help you! You don't have any money in your savings because you had to pay off college loans and debt.
You're 19 and you get pregnant and you want the baby, you want to have this beautiful child. But your boyfriend leaves you and your parents won't accept it.
Life doesn't give a **** what your situation is, this world doesn't give a **** how you got homeless because if you're homeless you're seen as less than. Why are you seen as less than? I bet some of those people know more than you or I or he or she do. I bet they can offer you words that would blow your mind. And because they got fired, or made a mistake that they couldn't come back from we look at them and turn our heads as we walk by them, we donate money at Christmas to show we "cared but do we really?
Yesterday at my work we threw away 16 pounds of food waste and I seriously felt some type of pain ring through my body
Because I knew that could've fed ONE homeless person for weeks or multiple homeless people for the evening.
I just wanted to take it and stuff it into one of our **** salad bowls and go dish it out to anyone I saw who needed it.
Can you imagine not being able to eat for days because you can't even afford the $1.00 honey buns in the starz markets?
And people pretend they don't hear you when you ask them to help with food.
Why do we look at these people, who just want food, who just want warmth, and need a home, as if they're someone who ruined our country.
Rather then giving them the a look of embarrassment, give them a look of kindness.

i feel pain for my soul,
you were always my dream
i dreamt of gold. the beauty and simplicity that would be our relationship
because we. we were meant to be.
i dreamt of autumn, harvesting one anothers minds, bodies, souls.
because, as i said. we were meant to be.
i still believed this even when he insulted me, and told me i was just a girl.
i still believed this when he ridiculed my passions and laughed at the art in the middle of the MET.
and later that night, forcing shots of alcohol down my throat until i blacked out in the bathroom, i still believed this.
he even told me not to. but i was blind, and maybe, just maybe the hurt was comforting.
i believed it even when he did not ask me to do it.
but when he grasped me i was gone
for i was neither happy nor sad
when he was doing this i felt numb
my spirit hovering in thin air
he would be the nightmare i had for the rest of my life.
and then i realized. it all seemed too much.
you were too scary.
monsters, answering with his breath.
my dream had transformed into my nightmare.
i loved you.
but i couldn't afford to stay.

i dont know what to do
at this point
i feel nothing
i keep running around in circles
trying to figure it out
but i see the end of this rotary
thousands of miles away
and im so tired
so i cannot reach it

My first mistake was being born.
Because when you are born the child of a doctor and an engineer you have expectations, you see.
You must be smart,
but of course not too smart because you’re a girl.
You must carry yourself with poise and grace,
but not too graceful or else you’ll be seen as too girly.
You must be successful,
but if you’re too successful no man will want to marry you.
Because when your father dies two months before you are born and your mother is constantly working, you’re already an orphan.
You must be happy,
but of course not too happy, because then people will think you’re strange.
You must help others,
but not before you help yourself.
You must not cry,
but if you do, make sure you hide it.
Because when you’re a sweet white girl with a nice body you’re seen as an object.
You must let him touch you,
but if you don't like it, make sure you act like you do.
You must never say no,
but if you do and he hits you, you cannot tell anybody.
You must not tell anybody,
but if you do and they laugh, you must understand.
Because when you’re a dancer and a runner, the pressure to be beautiful and thin is stronger than your cries of help.
You must restrict your calories,
but if you cant, make sure you throw up.
You must apply makeup and cover your blemishes,
but if you cant, make sure you hide your face.
You must exercise until you pass out,
but if you cant, make sure you don't eat the next day.
Because if you do not get good grades you are not good enough.
You must study,
but if you forget, make sure you cry yourself to sleep because you cannot do this anymore.
You must be the best in your class,
but if you can’t be, make sure you congratulate the best, even though you cannot do this anymore.
You must stay in and work hard instead of going out and having fun,
but if you don’t, make sure you feel guilty about it since you cannot do this anymore.
You must be happy.
You must be smart.
You must not cry.
You must be perfect.
You have to be.
You can’t be.

it's sick, it's ******* sick as ******* plague to wish someone succeeded at suicide but if that's how i'm feeling i can't control it you ******* made me this way
you
i hate you
"you don't know how happy it's made me that we're friends again."
we aren't
we aren't
we aren't friends
you think i want to be friend with you
because i'm nice and if i didn't say yes you would probably threaten to **** yourself or some **** and say what you always say.
"but you've been my reason for living."
just like when i didn't say yes you stuck your fingers into me and breathed heavily and i sat there frozen and with no emotion but i wanted to yell for help.
you ruined my recovery and continue to.
people ask why don't i tell you to go away.
i try but you keep coming back.
like the devil.
do you hear the things you say?
"i tried to **** myself."
"i tried to **** myself and I just wanted someone to talk to."
i said I'm not in the place to hear that right now.
"******* Belle, all you ever do is rub it in my face."
You'll do it again.
i'm always the perpetrator.
i don't want to be friends.
stop talking to me.
i have nightmares of you strangling me and forcing me to do things with you, because this is what you once did.
asking someone to go away is never so simple when they're so obsessive.
i have had a ball and chain around both ankles for so long.

“Which one you got?”
They inquire as if it’s something you receive.
“Whats it like?”
When you got that toy as a child, remember how invigorating it was?
“Well do you like it?”
Of course I like it. Or atleast at one point I did. Now it’s just there and I’m bored of it.
“Well why?”
Every toy becomes a burden at one point.
“So what do you do with it now?”
I try to put it away and hide it, because I hate when guests come over and ask me about it.
“But weren’t you so excited about it at one point?”
Yeah, but times change.
“So which one you got?”
They ask over and over again.
Finally I respond to the question. “Anorexia.”

I know it's taking my life away.
I know it's a facade.
I know it's ruining me.
But it's also a whole part of my brain that's different.
And I can't just switch it off.
I can't just make a change.
I can't have good day after good day. There's so many ups and downs. And that's why when people say "well just eat." It's so angering because,
I. Am. Not. In. Control.
I don't want to throw up I ******* hate it. Everytime I do it I literally go "no no no. But I have to."
And when I see ice cream or bread I reach for it and it's like something grabs my hand out of thin air and breaks my wrist.
And it's a physical pain and I want to cry all the time because I hate living like this.
But I'm scared living without it, too.
It's such a comfort and that's what's most scary about it.
And I can never foresee a future for myself. I get panicked because I can't even figure out what I want right now. All I can think about is this disease.

Why can I forgive everyone else,
But never myself.

i am going to try to articulate.
i am borderline
even more so, a gemini borderline.
if that has anything to do with it
i must have all the attention on me
at least that's what they say
but i think it's true because when you were in my bed
and you left
i said wait
you were not him.
you were someone else
who held my hand
and held me
so i must have all the attention,
again, a gemini.
a flirt,
i cannot control my impulses because of this disease
i thought i was okay
but now i see ill never be better
because i am a liar
and a lover
but not always of one
atleast,
thats what i say.

time passes by
and i don't realize it
see
i must just dissociate each moment
they say it happens when there is something bad going on
it's a so called "escape"
each moment is bad
so i can believe that
because
i'm not so sick anymore and i'm envious of the sick girls
my therapist said i don't need a high level of care anymore
so i guess i've failed
****
****
****
**** i ******* wish i couldnt walk again
looking like an auschwitz survivor
and i'm jealous
of girls bruised knuckles and
caved in eyes
now i jiggle
i was once that way
can't i do it again?
again
again
again
again im in a position that my body makes me want to die
or look like i am atleast
how did i get this big?
come back, come back
i need that illness back or else i might not be able to go on
i need it.
come back.

why does everyone around me have a life jacket but i dont

Fighting for herself,
a woman stands her ground.
She is we.
We is the women of the world, finally standing up for ourselves.
A woman knows she is strong. All on her own.
Against a man’s pride.
Awaken, women of the past,
Powerful women must unite.
be with us now.
All mighty women.
With the destruction of the man’s arrogance,
All men must come to understand their ignorance.
With this comes women howling with enthusiasm.
Breaking down barriers of the patriarchy.
Lower pay, ****** exploitation, being treated as if women are “lower” than all men. All these things that have shut out women for so long.
Well, watch this.
Smashing the wall,
standing our ground.
A woman is a hell of a force.
Don’t you know they named her Mother Nature for a reason?
We must help to resist.
Women do not come without being prepared.
It is an organized chaos.
As if it is Mother Nature herself.
Incredible and blazing.
A cure,
to what is wrong.
Women. Finally fighting for what’s right.
Women. It’s going to be a hell of a fight.

"there's no place like home for the holidays"
that stupid ******* Perry Como song has been ruining my life ever since Wednesday when I got a call that said, "actually we need you to come in tomorrow we are really concerned about you."
it was either residential or the hospital.
i was picking between the lesser of two evils
i called my grandmother on the phone and she said, "i don't understand why you aren't getting better."
and i don't either.
i had to force a smile upon my face today so i could force pep into my voice so i could force a lie to my lips about how good today was when i called her today.
when in reality today i cried three times and i wanted to jump out my bedroom window, and planned to run away on multiple occasions.
i opened the stocking they gave us when they tried to make it more "christmasy" and i just wanted to throw the ******* soaps they made me in their faces and screech "THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH."
i want my family. i want ******* egg nog.
they didnt even let me make 5 minute eggnog.
i want to look at MY tree—-not this tree named "Harold" ******* thats 3 feet tall and has strictly circular, generic ornaments on it.
i want to be with my sister. i missed all summer with her because i was in treatment and now I'm missing all winter break with her because of it.
this isn't christmas.
this isn't home for the holidays.
nothing like laying in the middle of a stairwell looking at a white ceiling after talking to your joyful family for 35 minutes on the phone to make you realize how important the holidays with your family really are to you.
this is *******.
this is waiting 730 days for Christmas because I did not get it this year.
I'm so sorry that i ****** up again
i hate everything
i hate myself misty
i hate myself
i'm a terrible person
maybe the best christmas gift would be if i just died.

so young and unprepared
like the ocean before a storm
i was once like that.
but in due time one becomes aged and bent
you are no longer innocent
your eyes begin to sag
your body is an old tree
and with such cruel fate comes even more confusion
for all this time you let yourself go, it was not enough
but do you remember when you were a child?
when your mother kissed you goodnight.
and the stars were twinkling like diamonds
the ones your grandmother got you on your 11th birthday.
but now it's over, mother is not here. the stars are old, and so are you.
you have heard the call from the past.
and that is all it is.
you are older.
and so much more different and so much more sad.

at first i looked at you with my teeth barred and i hissed. under my breath i spoke, "great. a room mate in treatment. just what i needed."
i spoke but two words to you,
and then you spoke back.
softness, kindness, genuineness in your voice.
and when you laughed, the little snort you did made me smile.
we shared our stories for those two hours.
people stopped by our door and stared in looking at why we were laughing so hard, and then they laughed because we were contagious.
we shared the same issues, and made light of our situations, finding love and comfort through one another.
and when i cried, you swaddled me and fed me words of peace and wisdom.
when it was a hard day we had to ability to place our hands on one another backs and say to the other, "hey, i know today was hard, but I am proud of you." And when she was proud of me, I was proud of me.
I was proud of her.
I was proud of us.
And she was my best friend, and the amount of times we repeated the words, "i love you, i love you, i love you." to one another. Is unimaginable.
But, as all good things do, everything started to fall apart.
Or maybe just I did.
I said things I regretted.
I hurt my best friend. The person who I loved, and in turn hurt myself.
I loved her.
Oh my gosh I loved her. I'm not gay, at least I don't think I'm gay,
but i loved her more than any pulsing, living, breathing thing on this planet and I know they say soul mates have to be romantic but why can't they just be your best friend?!
And when we parted and I didn't get to touch her skin again, it's been what seems like years now, it's as if the winter came early.
A darkness fell upon me and oh it was dark.
Darker than her hair.
Her wardrobe.
Her sense of humor.
And now we rarely talk.
I love when I see your name pop up on my phone, the purple heart emoji next to it, that's my favorite emoji, I use it for the best people.
And I ******* hate it, too.
Because I can't put into words how sorry I am.
How much I miss you.
How much I need you right now.
Maybe I loved you so much because you gave me the feeling of importance that no one else ever did.
I can't put into words that you were exactly what I wanted in my life and now you are gone and I can't get it back.
Although,
maybe I just did.

has the pain ever been so bad,
you just do not know how to put it into words?
like a fire.
i can't extinguish it with any water, no matter the amount.
1 gallon, 12 gallons, 132 gallons, 1,089.
i should check if these cans are filled with gasoline.
or maybe it's like an abusive relationship
you know,
when your partner is so mean to you and it makes you go home at night and sob, and wail, and ferociously curse and wave your fist at the air.
yet somehow, you can't say "i don't want to be with you anymore"
and when your friend asks you where that bruise is from you'll probably just tell them you hit yourself on something.
is this because the pain is comforting?
is it because you've been here for so long?
is it because you don't know anything without the tears, the gut wrenching pulls and pushes at your psyche, the sinking stomach, the migraines from crying so much?
because when you have a moment of happiness you can't stay in that and then the pain has open arms and whispers to you, "welcome home."
pain is home.
pain has always been home.
a life without pain is not something you know of and no matter how awful, how miserable, how atrocious you feel, pain is when you belong.
"welcome home" whispers pain.
glad to be back.

I used to always wonder how people lived in New York City.
Where were the homes?
When I was younger I used to picture these rural houses with beautiful green grass and a lovely wrap around pine wood porch adjacent to the Empire State Building. Then I grew up and realized apartments existed, I realized neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens existed and were places where suburban homes and condominiums were.
I realized that not all homes were made with grass and wrap around porches.
Some homes were on the fourth floor of an apartment complex with a musty smell and a view of a graffitied wall in the ghetto.
I realized that sometimes these places felt more like home than any home in a small rural town with a smoke puffing chimney and windmill could ever feel.

She was 13 years old the first time.
A mix of tequila and pain killers.
Laying on her bed, she did not know what to do.
Made a mistake.
Her brother tries to stick his finger down her throat in hope she wouldnt die.
Police said it was "teenage angst" a "typical teenage girl"
She refused to speak to them because they didnt understand.
"stupid girl." her mother says.
Goes to therapy and gets diagnosed.
But her mother doesn't think the diagnoses is real.
"You want some fries?"
18 years old the second time.
Roommate found her unconscious, brought to hospital.
Roommate is crying.
She felt so guilty.
Gets sent to Hell with people who all tried to **** themselves.
Gets jokes about her anorexia.
"You eat barely anything, no wonder you're so skinny!"
5 days of playing chess and daytime napping.
Can't go back to school.
3rd time it was winter. 19 years old.
Extremely cold. Probably 20 degrees.
She went out running, hoping she'd get hit by a car.
Cars are really good at stopping for pedestrians.
Spent 2 hours trying to **** herself.
She cried when it didn't work.
Went and banged on a facilities door at 12am.
Screaming help,
because now she's just tired.

winter is when I think of my past
i guess you could say it’s an anniversary of sorts
i drown and i feel as if my body is being crushed
continuous pain
if im drowning i can’t breathe
if im being crushed i can’t feel
but that’s the problem
is i do feel
too much in fact
repeated anxiety and repeated struggle
i am a ******* mess
why do i walk the road of emptiness and misery as if there’s not so much going for me
i want to breathe
but it’s
hard
inhale
exhale
release