Yesterday I begged of Allah
(as only the truly desperate can)
for His all-encompassing mercy;
that for whatever wrong I committed
I might find His forgiveness
to bring me back to his embrace,
away from This Cruel World.
It may be this isn’t punishment at all
but perhaps I’m not through serving my sentence
for the misdeeds of an unreined nafs
and maybe he’s not even listening
to the pittances of a ****** soul.
Oh well
As long as no one tells my mother
I’m still praying for death.

Don’t you ******* dare
to romanticize me
Don’t act like my ribs poking through my skin
And wrists so frail I’m half-certain they’ll snap too
is beautiful
Because that’s exactly what you’re doing
through your glossy magazine pages
and water-and-kale only lunches
Making it seem glamorous
that I lay dying slowly at my own hands
Don’t paint over my
sallow complexion
And hair falling out in thick strands
As I tried to put up a ponytail
Here’s my thigh gap
(it’s writing my obituary)
but isn’t it just #goals
Don’t make me
the reason a twelve year old girl
is squeezing her tummy
I did not fall for that trap
But I’m in the same pit anyway
I am not a costume
Not the “**** anorexic”
Don’t tell me to learn to take a joke
Because it isn’t a joke
to make my best friend sick with worry
Because the pounds keep peeling off
I’ve felt sinking in my (empty) stomach
when friends ask me “how do you keep so thin?”
in pale green tones of envy
when their bodies are so full of life
and mine is withering
and I’m crying over a stupid ******* bowl of soup
that the same girl (but a different one)
would have drank in two minutes
soaking in the warmth in a full tummy
But that I heated in the microwave
three, four times,
forcing down spoonful by spoonful
just to have something in my stomach.
I just want to eat pancakes that don’t taste like dust
but all my meals are tainted with self hatred
and how ******* dare you
teach them that hatred
like it’s *pretty?

Please don’t tell anyone;
but I’m scared
Eyes once creased with laughter
now open wide with apprehension
There’s a fast paced drumbeat in my head
and my heart is pounding against the walls of my chest
because I’ve been signed up
for a job I’m under-qualified for.
Please don’t tell anyone!
But I’m sad
and there’s nothing beautiful or romantic
about how my head aches from hours spent crying
and hating myself for tears and everything else
about trying to remember to love my skin
and everything else in it
but failing miserably
and tasting salt.
Please don’t tell anyone;
but I’m empty
My stomach’s been hollow for hours
and my vision’s starting to blur
but I don’t care
Because I’m devoid of the will
to carry on
uncaring of what happens
to this shell of the person I once was.
Please don’t tell anyone
all I’ve got left are thin deceptions.

Because you curse yourself for the tears in your eyes
knowing they won’t do anything
except make your kisses taste of salt.
But you cry anyway;
there’s nothing else to be done.
Your heart is heavy and you can’t help thinking
All that weight’s from doing the right thing
And wouldn’t it be nice to have what you want for once.
You’re dying to be someone else
and heroes are empty stories to you now
Because kindness and courage aren’t getting you anywhere
but lying on the ground thinking about nothing in particular
because everything hurts.
So we’re rooting for the villains now
in leather and not lace.
Red lipstick is warpaint
and we dyed our closet black
We’ve come for power
Because forget happiness, we just want to survive
I can live with this hollowness in my heart
because it’s the only way to live.
Forget Prince Charming
Because he’s a nice enough guy but nice guys finish last
so leave him in the corner trying to get his **** together
and burn out the princess in you
You’re a queen now
and you’re gonna take your happy ever after
if you have to let all hell loose to get it.

It came like autumn
It was summer;
and then it wasn't.

I’ll be fine, I guess.
So would you.
How soon
depends
on how we broke.
In half? Rough and jagged at the ends
With you clinging angrily to your end and I to mine?
Angry, stubborn tears stinging
in your eyes or mine
That’d be a while
But you’d be fine. I’d be fine.
Or maybe
the courting of Death
Seductive caresses across my wrists and lips or
something sudden and final
In screeching brakes and the smell of rubber tires
denial
and hollow ringing
as I think for the first time in my life
God, I wish I wasn’t wearing black.
It doesn’t matter.
A fight
An illness
A drifting? eventual (we had nothing left in common)
You’d be fine.
You’d remember me in fleeting moments
Flicking past a space documentary on Netflix
or pausing over a box of creamsicles in the frozen aisle
And I would see you
In the golden yellow hair of a passerby
But it would pass every time
One of us might laugh at the thought once we said
you and me
to the bitter end
That a teenager knew what forever and always was
and chalk it up to youthful naiveness
And we would be fine.
But I don’t want to be fine
I want to be laughing so hard my stomach almost lacerates
Because you know exactly what to say
And I want to be pressing
Kisses to your cheek and passing you hot cocoa
Because today we’re staying in and watching Disney
(singing along to every song of course)
I want to introduce you to everyone
Have you met…?
And tell strangers in the grocery store
About the most wonderful thing you did
And watch them smile kindly
over me gushing about you
across the stacks of tomatoes.
And I want to tell you over the phone about that stranger
So you can say
ew, tomatoes.
I don’t want to be fine, I want to be the kind of ecstatic
That only comes from us
From discussing everything from lipsticks to physics to musicals to dying
From knowing that when I am so tired I can feel it in my soul
You will hold me and let me cry
From believing it will always be us against everything
From living happily ever after
Because what is fine
Compared to this?

3 AM is a time that doesn't exist to you
but I'm a night owl.
You laughed at that once
and said vampire sounded cooler
after which that Arctic Monkeys song always reminded me of you
the one on my Halloween playlist,
because it was autumn then.
It's the summer of another year now
and things may have changed
but the nights still find you asleep
and me awake with you in my thoughts.
I'm still just as confused
And your breathing's still just as steady
But something's slipped away
And I'm not sure how.
There's no one to send you middle-of-the-night texts
that jolt you awake
because I'm binge watching that show you told me about
connecting us for a second before you roll back over.
You're not religious
but I was told our paths are as predestined as the planets’ orbits
And I'm dealing with the fact our circles might be tangent
And the intersection's gone.
You're where you belong,
which is miles away, in bed,
not in my head,
and certainly not in my poems.
Come daylight you'll be gone.