he told me about how ***** his family's money was
stocks under the table and
overcharging black girls
to pull out their babies
i told him he didn't reflect that at all,
and he said he tried to keep his head out of the clouds
as if what i'd said
had been a compliment
as if it wasn't my way of saying
he was too boring
to have a story like that.

i miss you . . .
like, i miss talking to you
is that weird . . .?
i'm sorry.

i wish you'd stop saying you miss me
to smooth things over
it's almost as bad as when you say i love you
as if your words might fix
my eating disorder.

when all your sorries blur together
they almost sound
sincere

i don't want to meet you in a coffee shop several years from now, when i've undoubtedly put on weight and still lost half my hair to the e.d. when i starve for a week or bend over the toilet because i finally cracked i'm not thinking of  several years from now. i'm thinking about a year from now. i'm thinking about three months. two. one. next week, tomorrow, yesterday. i'm thinking about hopping on a plane, or a bus, or just ******* walking until i reach you. until i can show you, show you what you've done to me and show you the brilliance of it all. no, the insanity of it all. the way my skin stretches over my thighs like tiger stripes and the little ridges on my fingernails from not getting enough calcium. all for you. i want to show you what i've done for you, no, what you did to me -- is there a difference? i doubt it makes a difference when you've become the ******* voice in my head.

i just want to be beautiful enough for you. right now.

he told me he loved me, did you know that? weeks ago . . . and i've been thinking about saying it back for days, but every time -- every ******* time -- i think about it, there you are. with your stupid name and your stupid self and ******* i loved you, you know that? i loved you so much that the thought of saying it to anyone else physically hurts. it feels like it'd be physically impossible to get the words out. two years down the road and here i am, tongue-tied in front of a boy you don't even know, screaming at my memories of you for not being able to catch me.

i haven't been thinking about you lately, i swear i haven't, but i was just thinking about parties and trashing myself and how anyone who isn't trashing themselves is just preserving their own corpse and i was thinking about death, lots of it, and i was suddenly hit with the realization that i am going to die [as i occasionally remember] and i had the sudden sensation to tell someone i think i am going to die and i picked up the phone and i nearly typed it all out, until i realized how he would react. how alarmed he would be. how he'd think i was speaking about suicide and try to talk me off a roof i'm not standing on. and then i thought about you. i thought about all of our talks and how i could say anything around you and you'd absorb it and yeah, sometimes you made me feel stupid, but most times you made me feel heard. sometimes you even had crazy things to say yourself and i, of course [being in love with you], ate them right up, right out of your lap. and i miss that. but talking to you is completely out of the question and he'll never understand.