I love you

Dot

Dot

Dot

I miss you

Dot

Dot

Dot

I need you

Dot

Dot

Dot

Ellipsis are meant to replace thoughts unspoken

So maybe you're the reason I'm so good at reading between the lines

I have kissed boys

Girls

People in between

But lately I have been kissing bottles

Their lips are colder than yours

But slowly I have realized that the pounding headache when I wake is less hurtful than the shattering in my chest

Yet as these toxins rush through my veins

I can't help but miss the tracing of your fingers along my skin

Miss the numbness of the world when you lie with me

But when I wake I remember that a headache is treated with an aspirin

While heartache

Well if you have a cure for Heartache let me know

Sometimes I like to go for a late-night swim

I strip down and sit on the edge of the horizon

Dip my toes in the darkness before plunging into the stars

I swim and swim until my feet can’t touch the skyline and the moonlight could easily drown me

I lay on my back and gaze down at the city below me

I watch cars on the freeway and lovers on the boardwalk

I dive deep into the universe open my eyes to observe the planets

Soon the sun starts to float towards me

Wrap myself in its rays

Walk back into my apartment

I grab coffee and watch the world rotate around me

Those nights are when I feel most content

Watching the world below grounds me

When people ask me who I am without my anxiety I don't know how to answer them

I walk around with a zipper at the nape of my neck

And when I open myself up without the anxiety that forms me there is nothing but sadness and ice left

Sometimes I feel like there is sunlight penetrating through my bones, begging to escape

But when I pull down the zipper my anxiety laughs at how I could think that there was even a possibility of something bright and warm inside of me

 

If you ask me who I am without my anxiety I will tell you, I am me, but the voice inside my head tells me I am nothing

My anxiety is the love that fills me

The terror that inspires me

The perfectionism that drives me

But I can't say that out loud

Because dinner party conversation or first date question games are not the appropriate places to say that without it I am dead inside

 

When I take my medication, I have been described as flat

1 dimensional

Having no substance

So when you ask who I am without my anxiety

Telling you I am nothing, may be the only honest answer

The chemical formula for love contains Dopamine, Oxytocin, and Serotonin

Dopamine relieves pain, helps with motivations, movement, and is a leading cause of addiction

Oxytocin controls cognitive control, emotional responses, and social behavior

Serotonin  effects appetite, sleep, memory, and ****** desire

Sweetheart when I met you my internal pharmacy went insane

The ****** in me overdosed on every capsule it could find

But here

Here is the kicker

Overdosing on any piece of this mystical, magical love potion can cause a slough of disorders

Depression

Schizophrenia

Extreme Paranoia

Over all insanity

Somehow

Somehow all this love nonsense

Finally makes sense

"Everyone wants to be a little anorexic" she says

"You know, like, in a glamorous way, like fashion friendly anorexic"

I bite my cheek and nod, pretend to agree

All I can think of is waking up to stars dancing on the ceiling

Pale skin with bruises of unknown origins

And battered feet on and off the scale

Almonds in Ziploc baggies

Bite marks on fingers

Hair down the drain

Measuring crunches by the marks they leave on your spine

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough water to turn organs into boats

Eating an apple with a fork and knife

Desperate hands grasping for ribs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Standing and the world going dark

Coughing around shots of apple cider vinegar

Carrying an emergency rice cake for weak spells

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough green tea to drown organs

Sugar free gum to mask the smell of decaying organs

Whatever nail polish covers yellow and purple

And battered feet on and off the scale

How many calories are in toothpaste

Thinspo blogs

Pillows squeezed between thighs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Is today the day my heart gives out

Waking every day in a new body

Fingers clasped around wrists

And battered feet on and off the scale

Notebooks filled with numbers

Purple crescents under eyes

Fingers clasped around forearms

And battered feet on and off the scale

Elbows knocking into hipbones

Being scared of your own reflection

Lies to get out of dinner

And battered feet on and off the scale

The stench of *****

Oxygen that tastes of Splenda

Fingers clasped around biceps

And bleeding feet on and off the scale

 

If this is your idea of glamour

Then you can have it