She stares into the mirror
And sees her ugly face
She just wants to be pretty
Not a pitiful disgrace.

She just wants to be let go
From the clutches of dispair
To be thin, not fat and ugly
Like her friends. It's so unfair.

She hears as people laugh at her
As she waddles down the street
She dies a little more inside
With everything she eats.

She hasn't eaten much for weeks
And she won't eat today
She doesn't care about much else
Just how much she weighs.

She can't see the jutting bones
Or skin so pale and gaunt
She's not in control anymore
It's the fear of fat that haunts.

On my right thigh is the most honest piece of art I have ever created.
You may call it my masterpiece,
Because the finished product
was created from years and years of major and minor additions.
****** brushstrokes that mark each time the phrase “not good enough” rang too heavy in my ears. 
Sick, faded tallies of scars that tell the story of my life the way some parents tally the heights of their children on the kitchen wall. 
But instead of growth these lines mark failure and unlike a child impatient to mature,
Each line makes me sick to my stomach for the regression it represents.
Lines and lines of railroad track designs left in the indelible ink of imperfection.
An autobiography written in the hieroglyphics of my sorrow,
Wounds sealed like an ancient tomb but with a map of scars proving that once these grounds were holy,
Governing my life like a pharaoh with a birthright.
A visual representation of a feeling constantly fought and lost
An unavoidable reminder that yes, sometimes the scariest enemy I have to face is myself and here are the marks left behind when the demons of my past manage to claim a brief but ferocious victory over my self control.

Now, I am a perfectionist.

This means by the time I was old enough to understand my shortcomings I had figured out that no lesson stings in your memory quite as much as when you start using blood instead of ink
When you let heartache become your muse and self loathing your mistress, 
and suddenly you’re imprisoned by the adrenaline of freeing warm red paint from behind a soft **** canvas.
The first time I felt the release of a razor on my skin, I was gripped with an infatuation strong enough to break the programming of nature and turn my own body against itself as my skin became the victim of my own hands. 
Heartache after heartache I eased the pain,
Becoming michael angelo with a thin metal paintbrush and a sistine chapel that burned when the shower was too hot.
Hiding my latest work of art under long pants and excuses.
Finding love only in the dark because what if he sees my skin and realizes that some days I can’t even love myself?
On my right thigh is the most devastating piece of art I’ve ever created. 
You may call it my Achilles heel,
Because the finished product, which I shamefully admit,I do still edit occasionally,
was created from years and years of marveling over the beauty of the world but never learning how to see the beauty in a blank canvas.
Cherish your beautiful blank canvas.

It took her
17 years to
realize that
monsters don’t
live under her bed,
but instead
within her.

It took over
Her mind.
It took over
Her body.
It was destroying her.

The pain of getting out
Of bed each and everyday
Was pushing intolerable.
It felt like she was
Shackled to the bedpost.

She felt heavy,
As if boulders were
Toppling over her.

They were the voices
In her head.
She fought the urge
To take the blade,
But eventually gave in.

She was screaming for help,
But her desperate screams were
Muffled and masked by
A forced smile and an ‘im fine’.
She was struggling to keep
Her head above the water,
But everyone was blind.

She fought the monsters,
Fought and fought,
And

Gave up.