Every night,
we were skin on skin,
soul on soul,
pain on pain.
I only knew him through heavy breaths
and vulnerable ***,
but I still let him slip away.
It hurts to say,
you can know someone so intimately,
from head to toe,
yet be blind to the emotions behind
every kiss.

But I should have saw his downfall,
because happy people don't
show up drunk at 3 AM,
begging to be touched,
begging to feel alive.

We were both in such a dark place,
looking to feel anything.
And while you were looking,
I guess you found me.
We tried to **** happiness into each other,
**** the sadness away.
But no matter how many nights of
hot moans and heaving breathing on my neck,
nothing changed how we felt.
I found my way out of that hell,
but you buried yourself in it long ago,
but today your body joined you.
And I know I can work magics but
oh my gosh Ben,
not even I can **** the life into you now.

I’m so afraid of being that person,
That is known to not have friends,
I’m so afraid of losing yet another friend
That I just keep my mouth shut.
Yes, I would like to voice my opinion,
But there are always consequences with that.
Instead I sit at the back of the room
Behind a group of friends
I pretend like I fit in,
But I know, that I don’t.
My only friends seem to be the lyrics in songs
Songs that I listen to at 2am when everyone else is asleep,
But it is the time when my brain is most awake,
The bursts of creativity,
The bursts of truth flowing through my head,
And it hits me.
Yes I have people I talk to everyday but really
If they could choose between me, the girl at the back of the room
Or the girl they sit next to everyday
Its an obvious answer.
I guess I am afraid of being alone,
But when I think about,
I already am alone.

I was 17,
when we discussed workout routines in gym,
thin legs branching from ruby-red shorts,
skin pale and dappled in winter air.
I described my workout of 200's.
200 crunches, 200 sit-ups, etc. etc. etc.
"You make me feel fat,"
my model- built friend complained.

I stared down at my shrinking thighs,
wondering how fat she would feel,
with hollow spaces beneath her skin,
numbed by the gnawing of metabolism on muscle.
If she could feel her labored breaths circulate
through drained limbs,
and saw the stars and sparks in the haze of exhaustion,
that perpetuated around me.
If she shivered
walking home in without a coat in December
simply because
Cold burned more calories than warm.  

At 17, I learned
Electric blankets were invented for asylum patients
so they wouldn't freeze when they were lain outside
to get fresh air.
I shivered under mine in a warm house--
strangled by three layers of hoodies,
a morbidly comical scene-- the skeletal inmate cowering
in masses of cotton
and still cold.

The skeleton in the mirror had no eyes,
Only its bloated stomach stared back at me.
Forget the thigh-gap,
the stomach was the only thing that mattered.
It should be as flat as the unleavened bread
I refused at communion:
I didn't know how many calories it had.

I was 17,
when the word "beauty" fell from my vocabulary.  
Lank, unwashed hair hung limp to hide the
Inflamed scratches on my face: feeble efforts to eradicate
the hatred, guilt, over two extra bites,
and what I had become.
Here I was, in all my gollum-like, two by four perfection:
except the stomach.
That ****** bloated *****
I wished I could tear it from my body,
Throw it aside to rot on the heap
of moulding high-school dreams
I kept in the corner of my room.

But it remained, day after day,
the stubborn thing stayed on,
even when filled with saltwater,
to force it to give up the last bit of its contents.
Three mugs, and several tablespoons later
it finally relinquished,
in the emergency room,
as my mother stood
holding my hair and crying.
I still thought she was over-reacting.

I looked up at the ER doctor,
middle aged and blonde,
her eyes were sympathetic, but annoyed,
As she asked me if I was trying to **** myself.
"No," I said. Not Yet I thought,
I heard my dry throat crack with the words,
"I have an eating disorder."