’Twas noontide of summer,
  And midtime of night,
And stars, in their orbits,
  Shone pale, through the light
Of the brighter, cold moon.
  ’Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
  Her beam on the waves.

  I gazed awhile
  On her cold smile;
Too cold—too cold for me—
  There passed, as a shroud,
  A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
  Proud Evening Star,
  In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
  For joy to my heart
  Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
  And more I admire
  Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

You ask me what my diet is
and I am reminded that for three years of my life
All I had in my lunchbox
were jam sandwiches
Single slices of own brand bread
with scrapings of red in the center
If there was anything there
at all
And I tell you that I've never had a problem
with portion control

You ask me again how I stay so skinny
and I think of all the days I spent
rummaging through bare cupboards
Looking for something I could have
for dinner
As I tell you that I have always
been like this

You wrap ******* around my
wrist and joke that a breeze would ******* away
and I can see myself now
11 years old and 5 foot nothing
Pushing my sister in her pram
up a hill on the way home from
school
Straining under the weight
And I tell you that my body had
never failed me when it wasn't windy out

You demand to know why nothing I eat sticks to me
But I can't tell you how my frame
hasn't yet gotten used to being full
of something other than rage
And I don't think I would recognize
the girl who wasn't starving
and stuffing her face
So I tell you that I just don't know

You can't help but ask why I didn't just buy myself something extra
And I smile when I think of the small
amount that I had to spend
and the fiver worth of sweets it went on
that I handed to my baby siblings as I shut the door
to their room
On the worst day I can remember
Because they didn't have to be hungry too
So I didn't eat a single one

But I tell you that skinny is just a memory I didn't get to give back.