The first time I skipped a meal, I spent the night with a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach.
The first time I cut myself, I threw up at the sight of my own blood.
The first time I made myself sick, I cried.

The first time is always the hardest, but it only gets easier after that.

Years down the road now,
I can see the beauty in what I've done.
The breath-taking wonder found in decay.

Tonight I sit on the pavement
outside my apartment.
My fingers curl around the
rusted chain-link fence.
Sharp edges of broken wire
left cuts not nearly deep enough
on my arms when I squeezed
through the hole next to me.

I don't live anymore than the metal at my back.
Just like the fence I am merely existing.

Months from now,
my kidneys will run
the risk of failing.

Already my teeth are
stained and eroded from
stomach acid.

My bones knock against
one another from shivering,
and the pavement underneatth
me chews at my tailbone.

When someone asks for a picture of me,
I give them the grainy photograph of the hole in the fence.
Just like it I am rusting. Breaking down piece by piece.

There is beauty in dying. In the natural course of slow decay.

When doctors ask me
why I did this to myself,
I will show them the scars
on my stomach.
I'll show them my
barren womb and
protruding rib bones.

I'll tell them that in trying to be perfect, I found what we're all really looking for.

I discovered that we're
born to die, and that
the beauty of life is
our slow descent into
the darkness of death.