The only time I'm not stressed
Is when I've worked myself past the point of breaking

Being too tired to feel is my comfort zone
I feel so at home in running around
I don't rest while I sleep
Instead to-do lists and unfinished problems are scripted into my dreams
Using the backs of my eyelids as a whiteboard for tomorrow's tasks

I can't tell if this constant state of movement is Newton's Law
Or a feable attempt to be enough--for no one but myself

I second guess each right answer, every step forward
My thoughts get a racetrack in lieu of a bed

I know this isn't normal
So imagine what I'd do to be in the moment I'm living
Instead of the somewhere else I always am

When I love, I love big
You ask for pebbles and I give you mountains
Ask for a match and I will give you a wildfire

When you saw me you asked for my company
I gave you my heart
You A
Asked for a night and I offered you a lifetime

I gave you an ocean when you asked for a puddle and that big problem in that

Is I never asked if you could swim

I woke up in a world I don't know




For years after my trauma I have taught myself that love is not forced space between
Is not refusing to visit
Is not a message of "I'm avoiding you because I love you"
I slowly learned affection is comfortable, hugs and kisses are small signals that life is okay


Today I woke in a world where that is no longer true
I woke to a world where love means distance
Caring means avoidance
"I love you"s can be measured by the miles you refuse to travel




Today I woke up in a world where my love language has turned war-like
Though I never thought of myself as violent
A hug breaks government mandated barriers
A kiss is now biological warfare




Today I woke up to a world where my love has been labeled terroristic
While my abuse has been labeled loving

Look at yourself

Squeeze any fat you have

A pinch

A handful

How much is too much?

What really is fat or skinny?

Victoria's Secret "Love My Body" campaign shows seven svelte models while Dove's "Real Beauty campaign features an array of 'Real Women' with curves in all the right places 

Both campaigns exclude most body types and show major problems with society

One shows plus sized is okay is only okay if you're plus in the right places

The other proves skinny is king

These are the standards we set for little ones to abide by

With a small bust plus wasn't an option

So I turned skeletons into goddesses 

Prayed the would teach me how not to need

Worshiped hipbones over pizza

A tiny waist over lunch

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness

Yet todays media forms computers in the minds of children to count calories as thought food were merely numbers

I learned how to purge from a pro Ana website when I was nine

Stuck a toothbrush down my throat and forced up dinner

Turned to laxatives at 12

Learned ill was okay if skinny was the side effect

Today I look at myself

Squeeze any fat I have

A handful

A pinch

How much is too much

A poet is made of many things
On the surface you'll see skin
Stretched across weary bones
Often with scars
Open them up and you'll see a heart
Broken, but held together with broken promises
Where their intestines should be are rivers of passion, Deep as oceans
Stomachs have been replaced with galaxies
Starlight guides them
A poet is stitches together with maybes
With could have beens and should have beens
Some poets are cities; walls built by torment, but beautiful
Some are fields of wildflowers; hearts as fickle the breeze that guides them
And others, others are oceans
Strong, yet gentle, following no one but the moon
The one thing that ties us all together in the love in our eyes despite the hurt
The way we see the world in a beautiful light no matter our trauma
What ties us all together is the fact that we
We survived

I sit on the counter, feet draped over the sink watching the sun rise over the trees through the open window
As I bring my coffee to my lips I feel the familiar chip
The one that my lips have felt every morning for years
This cup snuggles perfectly between my small hands, the warmth shielding them from the cool spring air

This cup has been through a lot
A few moves
More than a few lovers

The Alice in Wonderland decal has worn off and the seafoam enamel is cracked-- a mosaic of all the times I didn't care enough to hand wash it
The handle fell off once, I wanted to practice the Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken things with liquid gold
But I'm a college student, so glittery modge podge worked just fine

In many ways I am this cup
Used, well loved
Slightly broken, held together with glitter and good intentions
I don't mind the cracks
In the cup or in me
Cracks show that you are strong, can handle whatever is thrown at you, heartbreak or linoleum
They also allow light in
To brighten when darkness is all you can seem to find

As I reach the last sips of my coffee the sun is well up
My cats are hungry and I'm running late
Some days it's worth tardiness to reconnect to a part of you you thought was lost

Today is one of those days

You wanted to be immortal
Spent your days searching for the fountain of youth
Hoping to make a deal with the devil
But my love you've succeeded you mission
The answer was simple
To be immortal all you had to do
Was break a poets heart

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