usually mad at myself for eating, pinching the skin of my stomach and thighs, but i've got an eye on that oatmeal and i feel exhausted and what if it's just me being hungry and i want to be strong
but more importantly, i want to be thin
i'm not quite sure why that is
but don't worry, i'm not doing anything about how fat my arms and legs feel, the skin i get to pull around under my chin
i just contour my cheek bones hoping they won't look so full
and feel best on days i pride myself on being small.
what a mixed up world we live in
what a consumer field
what a first-world disease
why do i still order medium t-shirts when i look better in a small
because i'm disillusioned of it all
and i talk about it a lot
for not wanting to talk about it
but i think about it even more

At first I did love you,
but then the rain caught up.
Always thinking of you,
laying dormant on your crest.
To drink until you blurred,
until as velvet as the mist.

When I grow up, I'll be cool.
Smoke until my lungs float.
Drink until my body's a pool.
Think of people with three felonies,
singing the same penitiary melodies.
Think of girls that said no,
love that diminishes
while a fetus grows.

I'll think of my dad growing up
under a different circumstance.
Think if my mom could hear,
she'd probably like to dance.
Think of my grandpa and my brother,
one isolating, one with too much love--
I wish it'd smother
me, under a Christmas tree,
whispering, 'I wish I could give more,
but all I have is me.'

At first I did love you,
but the frame spills metal guts.
Always thinking of you,
the way your eyes, wide shut.
To think of a turn,
I watched it blur,
the glass shattered.
The paramedics mimicked me,
lifting me up,
'What's the matter?'

When I grow up, I'll be dope.
Find a nice blond and maybe elope.
Shake into her what was stirred into me,
and tell her not to mistake it for chemistry.
And bleed no more, so she doesn't believe,
that there used to be a weaker me,
but it's hard to control a certain circumstance--
like, what if my mom wished to dance?

The rich kids never read
Bukowski.
The poor kids all read the
same dog eared copy of
"Women".

The Animal Control guy tries to feel
Nietzsche while parked within
the shade of a drooping
Eucalyptus.
While his frightened captives
**** in their pins and wait on death.

She gave me my first copy
of Kerouac and made sure she
took it back when she
packed her things and left
for good .

I found Dante half dead
and forgotten in a prison cell.
His Inferno had been stripped of its
jacket and was scarred with graffiti.

I read passed the torn
and missing pages
and when I was done.
I went back and walked
through that
Cold and Confusing Hell
with Dante as my guide.

Over and Over again.

sometimes i look at skinny pictures and think to myself,
i wish i starved myself or threw it up
tomorrow i'll drink more water and eat less food
because i don't want to impress anyone,
but i want to feel that small under big shirts
and i want to wrap up into a ball
and i want to look fragile but
i don't want to be fragile...
and so i remind myself
to be strong is hard when i'm making myself small

i don't know my own name some nights
when i'm sober and by myself and slightly chilled, exhausted
it's mine but i don't feel it's mine
i don't feel like anything at all
but tonight I'm not sure
feeling nothing used to be bad
but being nothing feels like it might be relief