It was then,
Laying in bed
In a dark basement room.
Brains blurry
Recovering from mild intoxication.

It was that night.

Nothing was the same
After that night.

The basement
Had that damp cooling air
Of being under the earth,
It was pleasant on our
Bare bodies.

Your rented suit
A crumpled heap on the floor
And my dress
Tossed aside.

A lone candle  
Flickered in the dark,
Casting light into our wine glasses.

Our breathing had only
Just slowed
When you told me
You thought of leaving,
Not that you’d ever do it,
But you’d thought about it.

If you ever want
To preform
An autopsy
On our relationship,
Cut into the inner workings,
Inspect the organs,
Find out how it died...
You’ll discover a cancer
Left over
From that night.

I never looked at you
The same way.

Our wine glasses glowed red
With the contents of our first
Bottle of wine.
We were drinking
The maroon
Slow acting poison of distrust
And resentment.

Only a matter of moments
Going the wrong way
Around the sun
Would take me back
To before
Your identity.

One day I woke up,
And you were bleeding
other people.
In a million different colors,
And never ending faces.
I woke up,
And you were no longer small.
You were something that
Could put planets on a leash,
And puzzle piece together
Entire new people
In your mind.

But little brother,
I still treasure
Your simple inexperienced lines
From long ago.
The crooked hand,
And the claw like
Umbrella
Seeming to crash down
On a raincoat figure.

I spilled water on the sheet of copier paper
You printed your masterpiece
Out on for me,
Smudged the rainbows,
Bled yellow into the raindrops.
But I love it.

This beautiful imperfect
Reminder
That you were once
A child.

Come
Let me show you
What it is to be inside
My body.

Experience having hot blood
Rush to the back of my neck
And color my cheeks
When burning anger and shame.

Feel the tattoos
Carefully grown in my hours of darkness
Seeds of ink
Planted
And coaxed to the surface.

Feel the balmy spring afternoon
Bring shining droplets if sweat
To my forehead.
Let me write my body around you.

Breathe the harsh toxic fear
And feel it in my lungs.
Fill my nose with the smell
Of green growth
Before the sunrise.

Feel what I feel.

Live inside my skin with me.

Because I don’t know how else
To explain myself to you.

It’s not my home anymore,
Just a place I live.
Childhood is a long rope,
And I’ve hit the end.

It’s not good to come home
Anymore,
It feels better to run away.

According to banking Research
This county’s living wage is $14.28,
Which is a whole lot more than I make,
But I’m still supposed to get by,
And I do.

They sigh when I come home now.

I’m a burden,
And unwelcome.
I’ve reached the end of childhood,
And I fantasize about looping the end of that rope
Into a noose.

Im parked in our driveway,
Hoping they’re still asleep
So I can just slip in
Like a shadow on the wall.
It’s not good to come home anymore
I look for any excuse to get away.

It’s not home,
It’s just a house that I live in.

Today my face shattered.

Every fleck of skin
A memory,
I am an intricate collage  
Of our time together.

Every part of my body
Exploded,
I am just a trillion
Tiny pieces
Floating around the room.

There isn’t a part of me
That you didn’t know,
Didn’t touch.

I can’t find anywhere in me
That you didn’t invade.

The private comforts
And hidden parts
Of my body,
Tea, pens, candles, antiques, beer, work gloves, socks, and scarves,
They all have memories of you there.
I can’t enjoy the things
That make me feel happy
Without feeling you hiding there.

Today I shattered,
And every microscopic piece
Shivering in the sunlight
You touched.

And none of my friends know
that I'm attracted to women.

I'll never tell
people I've known
since I was
fresh out of the garden of toddlerhood.

I'll never tell them that I,
another woman,
Can appreciate the art of *******,
the beautiful curve of female legs.

I can hide behind
the fact that I also like men.

There's so much
I still can't say
in this era of freedom
and pride
and acceptance.

Your eyes look like salt water,
I'll shake it with ice,
And pour it in a clouded glass,
And down it in one swallow.

I'm feeling self destructive,
Want to do it with me?

Your hair is soft
And familiar to my finger tips,
So it will feel at home,
Between my fingers,
Rolled in lit paper.

Sometimes
It feels like we're just a
Bad habit.

But it's probably just anxiety
Again.

The car is parked in the driveway
The keys hang loose in my hand
My forehead is pressed
Against the steering wheel.

Failure.
A word sticky on the lips
Like cheap lipstick,
But it stays like stain.

Old men
Sitting in the freshly brewed
Sunshine,
Sipping their black coffee
Talking about copper wires
And rusted cars.

We have a wonderful
Amount of windows,
And a musical tin roof.

Coffee and butter
Are the aromas that waltz together
And scent the morning.

Everything is warm here.
Warm, white, silver, and blue
From the sunrise.

I used to be afraid
Of being honest.
I used to let people’s reactions
Completely rule me.
If it upset someone I loved,
Then I rearranged myself
To fit their needs.

But no more.

You, my love,
Taught me the difference
Between consideration
And fear.
You taught me how to see
The logical fallacies.
You gave me room to breath,
And you never accept,
Anything less than
Brutal
Truth.

I see the difference.
I’ve become the difference.
You showed me love
In a way
I never knew existed.

And the best part?
I get to share it
With you.

Summer solstice in a dark
Basement kava bar.
An army of drums
Rolling my brain around
In an intoxicated blur.

There are things no one understands
Hiding in me.

Things
Made of a foreign Fiji beverage
That makes your tongue numb.
Hanging glass tubes
Filled with feathers and herbs.
A bar,
A traditional toast,
A friendly conversation.

I hide myself
In the blue walls,
Mimic the gold designs
Until I disappear.
It’s hard to be anywhere,
Hard to forget,
But I’m here.

His little fingers are sticky
In the mysterious way
That a toddler’s always are,
But I still hold his hand
In the parking lot.

I started to love
The grass stained
Everyday
Life
In your family.
Suddenly I
Was at home
In a child
Holding me close,
Singing along to songs
In the car,
Shoulder rides,
And trips to the bathroom
Where I helped him wash his hands.

“I’m not going to lie,
I got a call from my ex wife
Yesterday.
The guy she was living with is gone.
I told her I might be interested in something in the future...”
He held my hand
And watched my face for reaction.
“But I want to see this through first.”

I’m a placeholder for her.
A hand to hold
When she’s not there,
Lips to kiss
When she turns away.

“I think there’s more to get out of this. I want to get everything out of this.”
You want to get everything out of me.

I warned him,
I was getting attached.
I never should’ve
Gotten attached.

I’m just a stand in Mommy.

The worst I can get
Is no where,
And I’m already here.

It’s a small town,
A Silhouette of an eyelash
On the horizon,
“Sneeze and you’ll miss it.”
It’s home to the bustling store
Where I worked.

He came in with his daughter
Some days,
He gets her on the weekends,
Sharing custody with his almost ex
Wife.
Dave, he’s tall at a telephone pole,
And he tries not to eat sugar,
He hates IPA.

This morning he came in,
And announced that anyone
Who tried to put structure in his life
He ended up leaving.

I like structure.
I like lists,
Things that match,
Objects having a home,
A balanced finances book,
And color coding.

When I was young
I coveted men like this,
"free spirits"
who come and go as they please.

I am still young,
but old enough to know,
I want more.

What's the truth?
What's true?
The truth is
he hurt me.
The question is
which "he"?
There's been so many.

Take a spoonful of expectation
And stir it into your coffee.

Let the steam encircle your face,
Leak into your ears
And up your nose.
Let the promise of the future you want
Poison your today
And your tomorrow.

Hopes are just pieces of paper
In a furnace,
And goals are ants
Under a spyglass.

I’m trying to cope.
I’m trying to move forward,
It isn’t working.

I remember
When people looked at me
As if I
Were beautiful.

I built the dam holding back my crazy
With the only thing I could find at the time.
There’s a wall of twigs holding back the storming ocean inside me,
And they’re snapping in two.

***, when I wanted to wait.
SNAP.

“How can you eat that?”
SNAP.

“I cut you off because you don’t always have the best views, and I didn’t want you giving him the wrong idea...”
SNAP.

“Well the problem is black people...”
SNAP. SNAP. SNAP.

“It’ll be good for us to be apart more.”
SNAP.

“That’s you, shouting at the world because no one is listening.”
SNAP.

“I don’t know how you two are supposed to have kids when neither of you can accomplish more than one thing in a day.”
SNAP.

“I rearranged your bathroom counter.”
SNAP.

“Well I don’t want you to think this is okay when we’re married someday...”
SNAP.

I’m barely holding on.

We were all supposed
To stay young forever,
And high school was
Never supposed to end.

My secret inspiration?
I’m painting a memory.

I’m painting sun soaked
Pink skin,
And rough wave soaked docks.

I didn’t mean
To become
The cautionary tale
From my youth.

I only meant
To be free.

“It looks deep,”
I said, face turned up to the sky
Looking so high
I thought I would float away.
You held my hand,
And paced up and down the driveway
Trying to see every star and planet
Above us.
You were giddy in that way you get
When curiosity
Has taken over
Your body.

Two falling stars
Faded into the darkness
Like a deep sigh,
I pointed them out to you
Moments too late.

Two wishes,
All to myself.

And both of them were
Something beautiful and secret
About you.

I’m winding
The idea
Of loneliness
Around my fingers

Weaving it
In and out
Between my knuckles

I knit my brow
My fingers
And my legs together

Leave my future
To the future,
And content myself
In
Myself.

The audacity of humanity
To constantly attempt
To imitate perfection
In so many forms
Is baffling,
And yet
Beautiful.

You wanted to be friends,
Which made me nervous.
That didn’t stop you.

You wanted to write a poem,
Which made me think I’d look foolish.
That didn’t stand in your way.

I didn’t want you to see the poverty
I lived my life in,
But that didn’t bother you at all.

My family is crazy,
They’ll drive almost anyone away.
They’re not the cute kind of crazy,
They’re the medicated (or should be) kind of crazy,
My sister yelled at you,
That didn’t deter you.

In the middle of sobbing
Shaking
Sobs,
Anxiety attacks,
And insomnia,
You stayed on the phone,
Or with your arms around me.
Every melt down,
Every pain,
You never left.
That never stopped you.

You’ve always fought for me.
It’s my turn now
To fight for you.

“You don’t have to say you love me,
I will understand.
You don’t have to stay forever
Just because you can.”

I wasn’t enough.
You kept telling me to stop saying that.
But if you took our relationship and boiled it down to a sticky dark residue,
It would show you
I wasn’t enough.

We never said
We loved each other,
Until the end.

“Believe me,
Oh,
Believe me.”

Sitting in your car,
My hand on the door.
I had dabbed the edges of my eyes
To keep the perfectly applied makeup intact.
When I said it,
“I fell in love with you.”
Silence.

“You don’t have to say you love me,
Just because you can.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t love her the way I do,
Maybe I should’ve loved her the way I love you.”
I loved you in the quiet way.
In the way that made me pop the cap off of your beer,
Or walk up behind you and hug you.
In the way that made me stroke your forehead in your sleep,
And learn the touch of your hands.
I didn’t demand anything,
I never demanded from you.

“Believe me.
Oh, believe me.”

You loved me in the way that you would wash my dishes for me,
And give me rides to work
So I didn’t have to walk in the rain.
In the way that you’d cook for me,
And buy me extra towels.
We loved each other in action.
Without demanding anything from each other,
We let ourselves have room
But made clear we were each there.

“You don’t have to stay forever,
I will understand.”

I had it all figured out.
I forced myself to channel my love for you
Into our friendship.
I told myself every time I saw you
That you were never truly mine to lose.
That it was only a few weeks,
That we could make this work.
And then you said it...
“We might not always be friends, just keep an open mind.”
And I took it the way that made my chest swell with hope,
Instead of the way it was meant.

“Believe me,
Oh, believe me.”

And then
One drunken night
You slept over
In my small twin bed.
I tried to keep my body as far from yours
As possible.
I wanted to honor the woman
You were trying to have a family with.
But you touched me.
I told you to think about what you were doing.
You said you wouldn’t tell her,
I said that didn’t make it okay.

Please don’t make me love you again.
Please don’t stay forever,
I’m trying to move on.
Believe me.

My body is walking around,
Functioning,
Doing what needs to be done.
Work, laundry,
Showering, cleaning,
Waking up.
But my mind
Is a dark blue balloon
Tied to my wrist
Trailing behind me.

The first sip of wine,
The first and last
Sentence
Of a book.

The ending and beginning note of a song.
Last words,
First words,
Gravestones and last meals,
Vows meant to last forever,
And whatever song
Is running through your mind
At two AM.

And your smile,
When you feel listened to.

A thin layer of dust
Has fallen over me.

Draped itself
Over the pathways in my brain,
Coated every toe,
Every pore,
Every inch of me.

I’ve put myself
Up on the shelf,
Closed a cupboard
Door
Over my individuality.

I’m just trying to survive right now.

It baffles me
That there are people in this world
Who just
Do
Things.
Just do things,
And only question if they want to,
Not agonize
Over whether or not
It’s the right thing,
If the action’s
Equal opposite reaction
Will destroy some aspect
Of themself,
Or others.

I question
Every moment
Whether I’m wrong,
If I’m hurting something.

It makes me afraid to move.

So I let dust collect
Over myself,
Perfectly good joints
Rust solid,
Eyes glaze over,
Body fossilizes.
Because that’s
So much easier,
Than picking myself apart,
Trying to be perfect.

It’s so much easier
To be nothing
Instead of
An impossible
Perfect something.

I was drunk a few nights ago,
The real
“Can’t walk without help” kind.
And I called him
Because I forgot
We had broken up.

“Are you happy with your decision?”
He asked in a calm
Gentle voice,
Patient as always.
“No.”
No.
“But I wouldn’t have been happy either way.”
“Okay.”

I didn’t text him to apologize,
I thought about it,
But that’s as far as I got.

“Do you feel better or worse?”
My friend asked.
“I don’t know.”

I’ve only been single since
Thursday,
And some guy already asked me out.
But all it did
Was remind me,
That I don’t want someone else.

It’s time to stop
Pressing my face against mirrors
And judging each and every pore.

It’s time to stop
******* in my pulpy cheeks
Like I did when I was a young teen
To see what my round face would look like
If they shrank.

It’s time to stop
Doing exercises I find
On the Internet
That falsely promise to make
My ******* the same size.

It’s time to stop
Holding my stomach fat
In my hands
And picturing my body without it.

It’s time to stop
Sitting on the edge of my bed
And looking down at my thighs,
And moving them
To watch the disappointing jiggle.

It’s time to stop
Wearing men’s clothes
In order to hide as many curves
In my body
As I can.

It’s time to stop
Trying to change
Because I want to earn love.

It’s time to stop
Hurting myself
Trying to become beautiful,
Because I’m the only person
Who I can count on
To be truly kind to my body.

It’s time to stop
Doing things
I know are bad for me.

I miss being held
And feeling like
Somebody loves me.

The early hours of the morning
Are a floor stained with Coffee
And fifty cents in change.

The sky is still dark,
And people are still whiping
Sleep from their eyes.
I’m going to miss her.

I’m going to miss her.

I thought therapy Thursdays
Would never end.

But no more tea in colorful mugs,
No more tears to match mine,
No more meditation together,
No more coming in
Just as you finish your coffee break.

For five years
I wasn’t alone.
For five years
I told myself to just breathe
Until Thursday.

Now it’s ending,
And it’s a Tuesday.

I confess,
My blood pounds in my ears,
And my mouth opens before my head catches up to it.

I’ve only ever lived for others.

When I didn’t want to be alive anymore,
I kept going
Not for myself,
But for others.

I’ve been taken from my lifeline,
My codependent
Reason for living.
Other people.

So now I have to slap my own wrist
When I go to help someone,
Keep to myself
Before I try to keep someone.
Live selfishly,
And hope to find myself.

My mouth gets ahead
If my head.
And suddenly I’m saying things
Like “I love you,” and
“Leave me alone.”

My way of self preservation
Was to invest in others
For so long,
And now it must be
To keep only to me.
And I don’t know if I want that life.

Easy there, Ginger.
Quiet your tone.
Don’t let yourself get angry,
Sit there
And take it.
If you want to
Survive.

Today I needed to remember her,
The wild parts of who I used to be.

I needed to remember the self destructive taste
Of cigarettes and chocolate bars,
The feeling of body positivity,
Sexuality,
And funky fashion.

I needed to remember that I am angry,
Because I needed to remember why I am moving forward.

I let myself remember her today,
The wild parts
Of who I used to be.

“Emotions make people interesting.”

That made my world stop
Spinning.

I’ve controlled all I am
My whole life.

It’s been an internal monologue,
Don’t say too much,
Don’t laugh too much,
Don’t hurt too much,
Don’t let anyone completely in,
Don’t be vulnerable,
Don’t cry,
Don’t get too excited,
Don’t be angry.

Someone
Who
Could be okay with me
Being too much?
How?

He came into my life
Like a brightly colored paint splash,
He got all over everything,
Splatters everywhere.

And now I will cut him out,
Gently and neatly
Score around him,
Trace the patterns he left,
And then remove him.

“I like to rev my engine at the top of this hill,”
He said.
You would’ve said
‘Hey look, someone with no ****.’
He has a big truck,
And a doofy smile,
You have a sleek little car,
And a goofy laugh.

We rode around for hours
Just talking.
That’s not an unfamiliar concept to me.

He pulled over
And pulled me close,
And I remembered when you pulled over
And told me to get out
And look up,
Up,
Up,
At the stars.

“You know,
You help me,
I help you.
You said you were going crazy.”
In the back of my head
I heard your voice say
‘He just wants to get into your pants.’
Which I wanted to yell I’m okay with.

“It feels so good, I don’t want it to stop,” he moaned.
You don’t moan,
And I recall you saying
‘You’re not good at handjobs.’

I’m trying to suppress
Your voice.
It has a say in everything I do.
In every man
There’s comparison
To you.
In every kiss,
Every touch,
Every lonely night...
You’re hiding,
And giving your opinion
From the sidelines.

I carved a pipe
out of my stony disposition
and breathed dreams in.

the smoke curled up,
up,
up,
into my eyes,
leaving my vision clouded,
and head dizzy.

Light me up
a pipe dream.
think me up
an unthinkable.
Let me conceive
with a ****** thought.

My drug of choice
is imagination
and fear of sharing.

I love to dance naked
into your eyes,
and play with your thoughts
all day.
All I need is paper.

Have a hit.

I'm currently assisting
My sister
In pretending
She knows my mother,
I'm listing the little things about her
That I take for granted.
It's amazing
What someone will do
To make believe they care
For just a day.

It’s a beautiful ride.
Everything that only matters
To you is there.

My drive has shoulder kisses,
And my favorite beer,
Jasmine tea,
And honey.

There’s miles and miles of green leaves,
Look up at the sky
And there’s snow encrusted trees.

Pots of coffee,
And smiles from practically strangers,
But at the end?

What’s at the end?

No where.

All the way things I find
Joy in,
The things that I live for,
Don’t take me anywhere.

My vision was blurry
From the water falling onto my face,
His hands pulling me close to him
A soft
Absent minded kiss on the neck.

Sometimes we’re more capable of a deeper love
For one person
In only a month
Than we are for another in two years.

Beer can in hand,
I walked up behind him and folded my arms
Around his waist
Letting the aroma of his cooking engulf me,
I pressed my face into his back
And smelled that busy kitchen smell
In his work clothes.

I’d never been with someone
Who’s fire matched mine.
Someone who encouraged me
To be emotional,
Instead of being afraid of me.
Who held me in dark moments,
But knew when to let go.
In three years Seth didn’t know.
Two years, and Dillon didn’t understand.
But in three and a half weeks
Rob could always tell
When I needed him,
When I needed space,
What was on my mind,
And whether or not
I was lying.

Driving around
In his car after midnight,
Smoking an illegal herb,
And talking about
What keeps us up at night,
And what helps us sleep.
His hand
On my leg,
His fingers locking with mine,
I played with his hair
And we sang along
To old songs
That sad teenagers listen to.

But we aren’t always
Supposed
To end up with someone
Who fits so perfectly into our souls.
Somehow we fit a lifetime of love
In a matter of weeks
And it was complete.

I woke up
To his perfect touches.
It wasn’t that he was gentle,
Or rough,
But perfect.
He knew when to be firm,
And when to be soft,
And I never had to tell him.
Making love in the morning,
And holding each other,
Playing with his hair
As if I’d done so for years,
And he kissed the top of my head
Every few minutes.

We don’t always end up
With our soul mates,
Because we aren’t always their soul mates.

Laughing in the car,
Watching TV,
Getting dinner,
Making dinner,
Him pressing the back of my hand
To his lips.

It can be so perfect,
And burn out
So fast.

I couldn’t get the people in my life
To care,
So I tried winning the hearts of strangers.

I slammed the dishes around
The sunlit sink,
Covered in bubbles
Up to my elbows.
“I can’t believe he did that,”
I sighed
As I angrily scrubbed muffin tins.

My boss looked up from dicing
Sweet colorful peppers
And pushed her glasses
Up the bridge of her nose.
“Well, at least now you know you made the right decision,”
She replied.

I turned around
And leaned against the stainless steal counter,
A customer entering the store
Caught my eye.
“I hadn’t thought of that... you’re right.”

I know the sound of your breathing
When you’re about to have a panic attack.
And that’s the breathing I heard
The last time I will ever step foot
In the house.

Jordan came with me,
Because I didn’t want to do it alone,
And he
Just knows how to take things in stride...
I don’t.

I didn’t want to lose our friendship,
But I also did.

When I moved out,
A lot of things happened.
I started sleeping through the night again.
I stopped having secret panic attacks.
I stopped talking to Rob.
I started praying again.
I stopped reading tarot cards.
I started to just
Enjoy things
Like I hadn’t in months.
And I slept,
I practically slept for three days.

I wanted you to hold me
In the way I used to hold you
When you cut,
Or you threatened to **** your self
When I actually
Tried
To **** myself.
Suddenly I was naked
Without your pinky
Holding mine.

But something else happened
When I let you go,
Suddenly my thoughts
Didn’t revolve
Around keeping you safe,
Keeping you sane,
Keeping you calm.
I just existed.

No mother to quiet,
No friend to babysit.
My god,
I could breathe.
I could just ******* breathe.

Maybe that’s why I was so angry.
His actions weren’t your fault after all...
But I was still so angry with you.

Because our friendship was only about
What you wanted.
What you needed.
Sure,
You listened to me rant and rave,
But it was never about me
Even then.
It was about you.

And McKenna?
He’s what you dreamed of
Since forever.
Do you think I don’t know
That he always came before me?
How could we
Possibly
Be friends with him at your side?

I would never make you choose
Between him and me.
Which is why I chose me
Instead of you.

I’m sorry it’s this way.
I’m sorry I can’t save you anymore.

But now we’re both free.

I think about death now,
Not in the scary way.

Not in the burning rage
Of hating myself
And my life.

But in the quiet loneliness,
The silent solitude.
It doesn’t burn,
It soothes.

Death feels like some magical
Place
I could escape to.

You know when you’re trying
To spread frozen butter
On a piece of bread
And it keeps ripping
At the slice?
It’s silly,
But that’s how I feel
About everything.

Death isn’t a scary
Last resort to me
Anymore,
It’s a comforting
“Just in case.”

“Honey, you can’t keep living your life to please people.”
But that’s how I survive.

Someday
I won’t be quiet
When I want to scream about injustice.
I won’t hold myself and cry,
I’ll cry in plain sight
And show that what someone said wasn’t okay.

I’ll leave when I want to,
I won’t talk to those who hurt me.
I’ll tell people when they’re rude,
I’ll speak up
When I want to.

But now...
I’m at the mercy of others.
I live to please
Or I don’t get to live.

This is the time of my life
Where I raise my hand
And ask permission.
When I nod politely
At unfairness,
Where my knuckles are clenched white
Behind my back
As I accept whatever treatment I receive.

I do dream of being free,
Make no mistake,
I’m not happy this way.
But this is how I must stay
To survive.

I don't know that most people
believe me
when I say I've changed.
I took surviving my suicide attempt
as an opportunity
to try and never get to that point again.

I realized
how lonely
my body was,
with my heart so far away from it.

I crashed back into myself,
and felt the sting in every
nail bitten
finger tip.
Inspected all the sore parts of my body,
touched my temple
and let myself think again.

I've been walking around
as a body
with the rest of me dragging behind,
Because I wanted to hurt less,
but so
much
more
damage was done.

Yet,
it's still better to be back
and feel the pain
than it was to run away.

I tell people I've changed
but they don't know
that crashing back into myself
changed me so much.

I took what could have been an end,
and made it give me new life.

Do you feel that?
It’s hunger.
Plain, raw animalistic instinct,
Hunger.

The fat girl wants her fix.

The ex
Skinny
Queen *****
Is hiding away in her room,
Dreaming.
Dreaming of trans fats and sticky
Perfect
Corn syrup,
Of powdered, fluffy,
Luxurious sugar,
And crispy, crinkly,
Crackles on your tongue,
Against your teeth
Deap fried
Junk calories.

While she lusts after that feeling
Of being too full to be awake,
Drifting off into sleep,
Entrancing herself with flavor and sensations,
She pinches the skin over her ribs and stomach.
She rolls the soft fat
In her hands,
To remember.

Remember you’re fat.

Remember you aren’t enough.

Don’t eat.

It isn’t worth it.

Oops,
She opened the door.
The gates have swung open
And out spills grease,
And glorious salt,
And sweet confections.
The sweet taste of self loathing.

That *******
Build up
To the cravings finally being met.
That comfort of knowing there’s food,
there’s food that no one can take out of her hands.

Do you feel that?
Hunger.
Basic survival
Reminder
Hunger.

Dear Deb,
I moved out,
I have my own home.
I make dinner
And have friends over,
I support myself.

My heart aches for my family,
I miss them so much,
It’s only me to take care of now
And how
Do I do that?
It’s never been
Just me
Before.

The more time away
The more angry I get
At my brother
For what he did.
I can think clearly now
And I can see
Where mistakes were made.

I walked out of a sushi restaurant
Tears dramatically streaming down my face,
A man held my hand
And said he would miss “this”,
He would miss me.
And I walked out
Wordlessly.
I could hear you
In the back of my head
Saying I wasn’t a child,
I was a strong woman.

I let myself start talking to
This much older man,
Letting him feed
My need
For validation.
I could hear you asking why.

I’ve lost my center lately,
I miss having a good perspective.
But most of all,
I miss you.