monday morning
and my skin still looks like
something you could touch,
but we both know from experience
it would burn you if you tried.
my mouth in the mirror
is soft and still alive
and hides the ghostly grinning skull
we remember from our nightmares.
wednesday every pore is oozing poison,
and when you tell me
i look pretty in my dress,
i can feel the sharp edges of scales
pressing up through thin flowered fabric.
wednesday i slash my lips red,
and as in nature it's a warning.
i am only an animal and
i have been consumed enough times
that my body has
made itself dangerous.
friday is a heavy knit sweater
even though it is warm,
because friday my chest
is caving in
and i cannot stand
even the accidental brush
of someone else's skin on mine.
friday no one tells me
i look pretty
and i fill my lungs a little fuller.
sunday is disembodied echoes,
a bathroom floor,
and a body that has never been mine.
sunday is gorgeous,
because i am not real,
and i am not here,
and all the things that have
happened to this body
have nothing at all to do with me.
sunday i am nowhere, which is
as close as i have ever been
to free.