I have a talent that not all can say they do.
Not God-given,
Or even special, really.
More of a skill, a trick taught in the darkness.
The one that suddenly appears
After nights of trying to bat away
the curled talons that inch my traitors forward.
My traitors.
How dare they betray me,
How dare they fall in love with the hand that says will give them all,
And leave me shaking,
In the bitter, dark, coldness of my room.
I have a talent that not all can say they do:
I’ve learned how to stay silent
When even my heart gives out,
And leaks its sorrows,
Staining my cheeks.
I’ve learned how to silence the pounding words in my head,
The profanities I never got to shout.
I’ve learned how to silence the grief that comes in toppling waves,
Because being in numbers is being stronger.
I’ve learned how to silence the ever-growing sorrow and grief,
That attacks in the dead of night,
With a jab at your heart
and a buzz in your head.
Never leaves,
Yet not always present.
But here I am,
Here I still stand,
Silenced and surviving.

do you ever feel like there are mountains and oceans and stars and galaxies that you are meant to explore. but you're human so you are grounded and can't fly and can't escape this little life you have to call yours. but then you see your brother smile or your mother cry or your best friend laugh so hard you just have to bend over with her on the floor. and suddenly all those mountains you thought you had to climb you were actually carrying and they were weighing you down. so far down that you were sinking past the earth's crust into the depths of the ground leaving everything and everyone behind. every first kiss you have ever had. every first book. first song. first dance. and all of your lasts too. your last goodbye to the boy you thought you loved and your grandma who always wanted to travel the world but never did.
and within the chaotic mess of your little life you have to have. you realize all the mountains and oceans and stars and galaxies you're meant to explore are already inside you.

i asked the universe
for a favor but even
shooting stars didn't
know how, so i had
to keep thinking if
                              we were truly meant to be, we would be
                                                              ­                            by now.

step number one: read the book wintergirls.
tuck away every detail like you're cramming for a test.
dog-ear the pages and carry it with you like a travel guide.
decide that with your fingers and toes always icy cold for as long as you can remember,
you were destined to be a wintergirl.
reread it periodically, for inspirational purposes.

step two: download the myfitnesspal app.
use it to track every calorie you put into your body.
memorize that an oreo has seventy calories, an apple has one hundred, a cup of hot chocolate has eighty,
a bagel has two hundred seventy (a number that terrifies you),
and on and on and on.
let numbers float behind your eyes just before you go to bed,
and let them stay there as you throw off the covers to do guilty pushups and situps in your room
for twenty minutes (burning one hundred and twenty calories).
ignore the warnings shouted at you in red text
when you eat less than twelve hundred calories per day.
look at the projections it gives you for five weeks from now
with weights that seem both too small and too large at the same time.
when your net for the day hits the negatives after weeks of trying,
feel the slightest pang of satisfaction.

step three: find your "thinspiration".
make a tumblr just to look at pictures of jutting-out spines and thigh gaps and ribs.
hold your phone up next to your reflection in the mirror
and pick out everywhere your body differs from hers.
when the girls on the fitness blogs start looking too heavy for your goal,
find the eating-disorder blogs.
obsess over their bodies almost as much as you obsess over yours,
but not quite as much.

step four: begin losing weight.
imagine yourself floating away, feather-light.
imagine yourself becoming skin and bones.
imagine this as you drag your heavy body from class to class,
as your muscles waste from malnutrition.
imagine this as you have to clean your hairbrush out
three times while you work tangles from your hair.
imagine this as you snap at anyone and everyone,
as you spend hours locked in your room.

step five: become a poet and write about yourself.
romanticize your own demons, just by calling them demons.
use as many metaphors as you can,
to avoid the harsh language of the truth.
and especially avoid writing about the crippling guilt
that hits you when you eat too much,
you're fat you're worthless you'll never be anything,
and hits you when you don't eat enough,
what's wrong with you how did you let it get to this point
voices in your head never abating.
avoid writing about your lack of motivation and constant exhaustion and always,
always, use words that imply mystery.
describe your mind as foggy, call your body diminishing.
never say it how it is, because you could convince yourself to quit.
never say that it's torture and you're in pain
and you just wish you were eight again, never considering this path.
never say that you need help but you don't want help.

if you have the urge to say these things,
say only that this disorder is not one you would willingly give up,
because you finally have something to control.
because it is the truth,
but it is also the romanticized truth.

I hope that someday
your pain doesn't control you
I hope that someday
darling you can be
the real you.