This is my body
Size 12, wiggle room
Jiggly thighs, 5’2
(And a quarter. It matters)
Overgrown roots blend
Into DIY blonde,
Somewhere in between
“Well kept” and “definitely depressed”
Acne scars, decently white teeth
Scar on my brow from that time I tried
Rollerblading into the sun, I swallowed the pavement on the way down. You can still see the cracks in my teeth, just underneath my laugh lines. I always tried to stay as positive as possible. No matter what.

This is my body, it holds memories like water weight.
Destined to burst, void of drains,
Man Made pores- formed from the inside out by cries for help that never surfaced.
Porous and calloused, found out that its purpose for a year straight was simply surviving.

This is my body. Flashbacks on a marquee, survivor’s hands painted nicely, so no one ever asked me why they were so *****, and broken, and ******.

This is my body
His dead skin under my nails,
Petrified.
Proof of a fight. scars on my arms
North of my elbow: survivor’s guilt in the shape of a Star, I spent last summer wishing night after night I wasn’t alive- I was so tired from pretending.

This is my body.
Latches like a leech to anything warm.
****** dry all of my loved ones in the year I spent spiraling,
searching for solace or sanity-
even safety. Found nothing but panic.
Nervous bird in a cage.
Narrow shoulders.
Boxer’s stance.
Dancing on the front line where I should have been to fight
Using my fists never worked.  
Neither did screaming “no, no, no”
Present until that very day. And now I lay silent.
Absent like a soldier, staring into space.
Trying to make sense of the shaking.


This is my body.
I have my mother’s eyes, her mother’s brain.
Black and white, strict like law,
Cemented in place for weeks at a time,
Then Moving at the speed of light, I cannot stop or I will die.
Creaky chest upside down, my stomach clings to my ribs.
Stand still until the room stops spinning
Or until my head stops hurting
And my legs stop shaking
And you stop when I ask you to stop
“This is my body” I whisper behind your hands as you steal all autonomy
I am left with nothing


This is my body.
He took it from me,
Did not even have to try to ruin my insides,
Did not blink an eye in the year I spent unraveling in front of everyone I loved,
Pulled out every lash I had, lost my job because of panic attacks,
But I am commanding it back.
I spent the last 6 months building from the ground up.
Spent the last 12 taking up the space I did not before.
The last 3 learning that it’s okay to.
I stopped apologizing in January.
I started yelling again in February.
It took that long to think anyone would ever hear me,
No one ever had.
This year I took my body back.
This is my body. Size 12, 5’2. Wiggle room.
Sometimes it can’t breathe right and shuts down in big crowds.
But this is my body and it is big and it is loud.
It takes up space, it is strong, it is pretty.
This is my body and for absolutely none if it, am I sorry.
Not a single part.

You’re always in the back of my mind,
When I kiss him at night
I think of the way we used to laugh until
The morning.
Sunrises have not been the same in ages.
I know you hardly think of me at all,
I hope come fall I cross your mind.
I hope you smile.

Every night I’d  fall apart in your arms
You were always one for puzzles
By morning I’d be Whole again,
I sleep  alone now, wake up still waiting

Most days I don’t think about you,
Some days I do. On those days I want to allow myself to feel everything for what we had, who we were, who I am now in comparison; I feel it all to compensate for the year where I didn’t feel a thing. All I knew was you. Not joy, not anger, motivation, fear. Only you. You were everything to me. I cower in regret.












I look back and compare what I have now to the laughter we shared. I used to cry. God, I’d lose it every night in my bed- the bed we shared for 365 straight days. I loved the you that I put on a pedestal. The you I met that first day at my workplace, the you that you wanted the world to see. The spontaneous, giving you. The romantic you. The intelligent, humble you. Charismatic, charming. Truthful. Lustful. Golden. These images play on a marquee and I weep because I know they are not realities.







I loved you with everything. I don’t know what you want the world to see now, but I hope with all of my heart you are happy. You never were when we were together and I always blamed myself. I could not save you. I tried until I ran out of life. You told me I was your burden to bear and I felt it in my chest, in my legs, in my gut, but not in my heart. I know that is not true. I know you have a martyr heart, I know I have a lot on my plate. You took willingly. Fed yourself from me every night. You preyed on my vices so that you might have reason to be tired. You were there for me. Through everything.  I hated you for saying that. It hurt so bad, I spent three days in the same position unraveling on the floor the night you told me you wanted to help me more than you wanted to love me. I’ll never forgive you, I carry that guilt around unwillingly everywhere I go. It’s a piece of me, I cast out to feel relief and I feel nothing. In my year of fear and darkness, you convinced me I had you until the end of time- In goodness and light and in suffering. You lied. The minute you had to stop pretending to be in love with me you took that opportunity and ran and the words that followed dug me hollow. I can’t forgive you for that, it hurts so bad. Still, to this day I repress all emotion in hopes the next one won’t run away, won’t fall to their knees and look up and say “thank you for making me this way.” I don’t know where to go from here, but I want you to apologize for being there at all if it was never genuine.

Simplest of names,
So plain, But how I love to say it
A promise for warmth in igloo block prison eyes
And tone of Daria,
just whelmed enough to respond
A chance of sarcasm is air
Venom in plain daylight.

Plain tone.
Plain mood.
Plain old abuse.
And most would take it from her.
As she would and certainly has taken it from us.

Petit feminine fighter with no haymakers or KO records.
****** face, that rested war and peace between chin and brow.
Baroness of motherhood or is it the queen of hearts and depression?

Stars and music always forever
Anchor tattoos with a key to a heart, now a predator.
Forever enchanted by the la-de-dah and bleeding heart affairs
A savior in no motion or fashion but I dare not call you hypothetical

But a standard broad, beauty and-
So shameless I celebrate seeing you, awkward and so ****
Cleopatra, to be a bit dramatic-
Yes Cleo-mantra, I collectively disintegrate all charm and physical form
And you,  unfazed or unimpressed with either detail of romance

My friend, compromised by style and NO amusement.
There is much more to you than ****** faces and belittling arguments.
There is more to you then practicing soapbox rants in your kitchen.
There is more to you than a shallow mothers intoxications and material.
There is more to you than the new hair dye or the wigs you collect.

The things you store in the boxes cluttering your room with everything not in those boxes
The clothes on your floor, decorations from your teenaged 3rd or 4th personality.
The smell of perfume and coffee and more perfume all over,
stuck to papers, next to wine bottles, borrowed and never returned books, unfinished snacks,
used paper towels, lipstick stained mugs and glasses, your sons toy I stepped on 4 times,
pictures of gone lovers and notes, your license; now found again after the second time ordering a new one.
And…it's expired,
Then finally under the aftermath of years, doubt, clutter, your cell phone vibrating in the fray of sheets.

"found it."

Least we forget that, as we forgot we are both in this room together.
You are so much more than this mess I picked up for you countless times
And though I complain I will pick it up for you and not ask your permission
I won't scold you, I can only exhale failure and help.

Staring blankly into your screen discussing all genres of worldly horror and ways to divert.
Such plans and opinions but no federal funding!
We would pay homage to girl power and the early 90's and call her G.I. Jayne-
(Or not cause she doesn’t have that kind of sense of humor.)
But imagine a solider, a true solider of the meek.
That is theoretically, G.I. Jayne.
Has all of our best interest at hearts, our hero.
Songs of children are said to give her strength-
(She really doesn't like this kind of humor, I must move on.)

My friend truly distressed by the world she can't control from her tiny screen.
I place all comfort I can to her and understandably rejected like a stranger making rounds.
No trust comes from her nowadays, None for me at least. I can't speak for all.
I try to climb over the steep absurdity, alluding to her self-mutilation and task this is
but not going as far as just telling her this is ******* killing me.

I have no lesser or sophisticated words.
I'm dying every time we reach these altitudes.
Fingers and my tone raising at every disagreement .
How you can break me down to my atomic core and decimate miles of friendship.
My closest star in the sky, use to bring me morning tea, flowers and maternity
We now stand in quasar as our space and stardust find mass in thousands of millions of years in development
For me to be sent to the loony bin and you to prison like our heroes from Clinton to Lazaretto.