I cannot thank my younger self enough for being strong enough to keep the urges from my face.
I remember feeling so damaged and ugly that I would dig my fingernails into my cheeks to keep the demons at bay.
There were so many times I held the razor in front of my face, thinking that maybe cutting it might make me feel pretty.

And that is so ****** up.

Today I am so angry, it is rattling my bones.
My body shakes and an earthquake of tears escape my eyes.
It's so bad that I contemplated taking out an old friend and ripping apart my skin.
But I can't **** up two years.
I can't **** up my pretty.

It's a frame of maybe 15 seconds, but my head has refused to let it go.
My brain has engraved it behind my eyeballs and plays the audio on loop in my eardrum, demanding it to be remembered.

The light in me projects the image from behind my eyes onto the big screen,
Causing me to double over in fear.
Her voice pours out of my ears, joining the picture, becoming a film.

She is on the floor, curled into a ball, helpless.
Repeating "This can't be happening" like a broken DVD.
Her hands are over her head, gripping onto it with white knuckles,
Trying to keep the room from spinning.
Her eyes are squeezed shut, but the tears are still falling.
The lighting is dim.
The hall providing the only source of light to illuminate her.
This can't be happening.
Her voice;
So broken, so fragile.
Switching from tones of hopelessness to absolute terror.
It's evident in the pitch change.
First, low and detached.
But contorting to stridulant and alarmed as the seconds forge on.

Several years later and I am still being forced to relive the moment.
I mimic her exterior, praying for it to be over soon.
Clenching my eyes shut, in attempt to put the image out.
Covering my ears with my hands, trying to mute her cries.
But there's no use.
She is still there, curled on our hallway floor
In the middle of the night
Hands over her head and mouth moving to repeat the same words,
This can't be happening.
This can't be happening.
This can't be happening.
I am so far from this memory,
But it haunts me still.

I have a scar on my right hand, directly below my ******* knuckle.
It is from my teeth digging into my skin while I shoved my fingers down my throat.
It is from me trying to rid myself of hate,
To rid myself of ugly.
To rid myself of the thought that, "I am not worthy if I am fat".

It has been exactly 1 year and 3 months since I last forced myself to *****.
And I can tell.
I can see every single calorie that was not purged,
Every single pound that my body has held on to,
And every single ***** look in the mirror.

But for some reason, you don't see that.
You undress me and you call me beautiful.
It makes me want to *****.
You touch me and i flinch.
You tell me you love me and I ask how?

The only time I feel worthy is when I'm gagging into a toilet bowl with swollen eyes.

This time last year I had a panic attack because I thought you would die while I was away.
I was terrified that the cancer would finally be too much and I would be thousands of miles away,
Too far to say my goodbyes,
Too far to see you one last time,
Too far to take a mental picture of how truly awful this sickness is.
Now, this year, I lay in the bathtub;
High on Xanax because you're gone and life's moving on without you.
I'm leaving tomorrow morning just as I did last year,
But I don't have to worry about you dying this year,
Now I have to worry about you being forgotten.
Worry that your memory will wither away,
That I will soon forget your voice and toothy grin.
Because everything is moving too quickly.

After you took your final breath it felt like the world stopped,
But boy was I wrong.
Things went on just as they used to and it terrified me.
Because how on Earth could the world still spin without you on it?

They asked us to think of the person we respected the most in our lives.
Once we had that person in our thoughts they continued,
"Now, write a letter to them coming out"
My throat hitched and I felt my chin start to quiver,
One kid called out, "But I'm not gay?"
That isn't the point of the exercise, Michael.
My mother always told me when I cried my chin looked like a walnut because of the way I scrunched it up in attempt to keep from sobbing.
And in that moment I knew my chin was contorting into a nut and my eyes began to burn,
Because am I?
The constant names and ridicule, "You're a ****, you're a ****, you're a ****" spit at me like venom after I donated my hair,
The family jokes of, "So you have a boyfriend yet?"
No.
"A girlfriend then?"
The countless times I have walked downstairs in the morning only to hear my mother say, "You look like a lesbian" and laugh because I didn't feel like putting on makeup that day.

I had spent my entire high school career terrified of the thought of being gay.
But so what?
What if I am?
Why does it feel like being gay is wrong?
The word "gay" is used as an insult time and time again.
If you're not straight then you're not normal.
Normal?
We have to crush this assumption that heterosexuality is a must, that it's the norm.
The LGBTQ community needs you.
We need acceptance.
Someone should not feel threatened due to their sexuality.
That exercise, of writing a letter to your idol coming out, shouldn't even need to exist.
Coming out shouldn't be so scary, so difficult.
We need to learn and to accept one another.
We can't place such negative connotations about being gay, or trans, or pan, or bi, or anything but straight and cis into the youths head,
because then they end up terrified and confused,
just as I was.
Please,
We need to save these kids.

Moments.
It is moments with you where I feel at ease.
I feel at peace,
and I feel like I belong.
I have always loved hands.
Every single one of my partners has known this,
I would spend hours tracing their hands.
Anything to avoid looking them in the eye.
But with you it's different.
I love your hands.
But I also love your chest.
Especially when my head is resting upon it listening to your heartbeat.
I love your voice,
Most when it is saying my name, or calling me babe, or wishing me good night.
I love your beard,
Notably when it is brushing against my face as we kiss.
And your eyes. I adore your eyes,
Oddly when they're placed on me,
Because normally, I would avoid eye contact at all costs,
But with you it's different.
It's all different.
A wonderful, blissful, different.

The faded gray text that is seemingly innocent,
There to show me that this, here, is where I write my words.
But today, November 9th 2016, looking at the word "body" here scares me.
It reminds me that I no longer own mine.
I am a Bisexual Woman.
And today I have lost my pride in that,
Because we, America, have voted a racist, homophobic, sexist, and hateful man into office.