My childhood was measured
By smushed handfuls of red raspberries
That stained my clothes methodically.
By counting sports cars instead of shooting stars
After all, we have enough in the suburbs to last us a while.
By "don't touch this" that comes with the affluence
Of one of the most prosperous counties in the country.
By butterfly T-shirts that were stitched together with secrets
By people picking and prodding at my size
By "if only I was skinny" vibrating my eardrums
As I had heard it from so many people before I hit the age of 12.
By being different
As at thirteen, I had no interest in make-up or push up bras or jocks
But punk rock music and a boy who was a little bit more dangerous than I anticipated.
By unwanted touches from uninvited men
Who took it upon themselves to show me womanhood
Before I could identify it myself
By the way my father stopped looking at me
As though I was his little girl
Because he began to find out where my skin has wandered.
By how my father had stopped looking at me quite some time ago
Because I was never his skinny spitting image of perfection
By the way he criticized my clothing
Told me if I wanted people to make fun of me for my size
If I wanted people to call me a ****
Then I could wear whatever the hell I wanted.
When I replied that I, in fact, did not give a flying ****
My mother chimed in
"Well you should."
And by the way complete strangers have told me to go on a diet
While others have screamed from passing cars
"****, baby, look at that body"
As though my body is my worth
And as though my worth is something to be measure
I have been taught that my worth is something tangible
That can be compacted into a little box with a pretty pink bow
Stuck on a scale and weighed
And that the number I see on that scale
The number of pounds that my body physically contains
Directly correlates with my worth as a person.
Do those strangers that hound me about my weight even stop to think
That I spend hours in front of the mirror
Pinching my skin into too-tight jeans
******* in my stomach because I just want to look my thinnest?
Do they even wonder about my past
How I have tried to diet and that is the only time I can remember my father
Treating me like a decent human being?
Oh, but I didn't lose much weight
In fact, the only time I really lost anything significant
Was when I was bulimic.
But they don't question that either.
And to the strangers who catcall me
That "body" has been abused by men I have trusted
That "body" has lost all control on a bed when a man took it from her
That "body" is strong, healthy and beautiful
It is not just a door mat for you to wipe your paws on
It is not just a *** toy whose sole purpose is to satisfy you
And then be thrown away
Is this what it means to be a woman?
To have your personhood and purpose in this world
Be quantified and made so it can be held in the same small palms
That smushed raspberries at six years old?
I hope that my worth can someday be more
Than a measurement.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 4 minutes ago
I found out you were soon to be
Embedded in the earth we used to dance on
But who's counting?

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 5 minutes ago
My world came to a crashing halt.
The I wish I could have been there's
Shocked my skin like a nine-volt battery.
I didn't feel pain
I didn't feel anything
I hit the ground and my endorphins were racing
Like a pin ball machine
They kept running into each other at rapid fire speeds
But I didn't care.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 6 minutes ago
I sat in my car, getting high on every particle of air that flooded my lungs
I drove for an hour looking for a store that would sell me a **** pack of cigarettes
I planned to down all twenty of them
So at least then I could have a prayer of getting sleep that night.
But my usual spot had a cop car in front of it
So I stuck it out
This town gets so boring after dark
Everything closes at 9.
Needless to say,
I was tobacco-less for the rest of that night.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 7 minutes ago
I started to restore my faith in you.
It was ironic, considering you were already gone
And the circumstances were extremely unbecoming
But my memory was like a movie montage
Every picture we ever took
Every event behind the camera
I remembered.
And suddenly,
You weren't a drug addict anymore.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 8 minutes ago
I was praying this wasn't real.
I was really trying to believe that this was a joke
And you would pop out of nowhere saying
"Got you, *****!"
You always did have a slightly morbid sense of humor.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 9 minutes ago
I didn't cry for you
But my heart was a rock in my stomach
My body took the blow
Much worse than my mind did
At least at that time.
There was a total disconnect between the two entities.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes ago
A part of me changed.
And I could use an abundance of metaphors
To describe this feeling more vividly
But the truth of the matter is
No words will ever be able to convey the pain of losing one of your first best friends
To an overdose.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes ago
I missed you intensely
And I haven't stopped since.

To the girl in the hallway of my high school
Who called me a *****.
Please, dear
Tame your venomous tongue.
If you want me to "act like a lady"
Why don't you talk like one?
By your own standards, of course.
Your words are spikes that are omitted from your spit
Can I spit them back at you?
Then again,
I guess that would only do some good
If I cared enough.
You see,
The definition of a ***** is
A derogatory term for a *******.
Please educate yourself
As I am not a *** worker
No, I do not get paid to be an object for men
As I have only even slept with one
As I have only even done anything consensual with one man
And no man has pleased me since.
Apparently I tempt them by saying
"I'd like to see you try"
Even though I meant it in the most sarcastic way possible.
And oh, do they try
Many even disguise satisfying themselves
As attempts to satisfy me.
But once the lights come back on
I'm not quite done with the last man I spent the night with
But he's already out the door.
His skin still lingers like fog in my mind
And in the corridor where we did unmentionable things.
I feel as slimy as ever
But it was stupid to sleep in our clothes anyway.
Because things went further than I wished.
I pull a blanket over my shivering body
It has been a cold autumn thus far.
And I'm sure my mom was worried sick
But she slept that illness right off.
Boys will be boys, she says
And when I try to explain what happened that night
How my memories are a little bit shifty
My credibility seems to fade as his ghost did.
Instead of questioning what happened that night
I am answering to questions like
"Well, what were you wearing?"
"Did you lead him on?"
Why, of course I did
Because everything I do in this ******* society is "leading him on"
If I blink, smile, wave, walk toward him, have confidence
I am suddenly opening up my body like a book to be examined and gawked at
Suddenly, I abandon my personhood by doing any of these things
And leave myself as a thing to have *** with
But because I know the consequences of being a woman and existing
I am still some two-dollar *******
Just for being a woman who has consensual ***
Just for being a woman who does not want you poking her bruises and revealing her scars
After all, they are not fully healed.
Just for being a woman who wears low-cut shirts and tight dresses
Even though I am not a size two.
Just for being a woman who believes that we, as women, should be able to make choices about our own bodies.
Just for being a woman.

To my father
I'm sure I have written this poem so many times before
But this time, I just want you to listen.
See, I keep writing and rewriting
Examining and analyzing which way will be the most effective to tell you
You ****** me up, man
But I don't hold it against you
Just against myself.
I press it to my chest every second I live
Like the hot metal pan I burned myself with last Friday
It brands my skin so tightly to form a label
One that tells me I am too fat to be pretty
Too promiscuous to be loved
Too awkward to be worth anything more than an insult.
You make me feel like such a bad person, dad
And I am screaming for you to just accept it
For the first time in your life
How anxiety and bulimia are byproducts of my chemistry as well as my childhood
How I am so hellbent on staying silent about my assault
Because you told me to keep it in the family when I was molested
And while you were supportive
You did not let me thrive by telling my story
As I could have with you by my side.
You claimed to be protecting from scrutiny
But I can take care of myself because I know what I'm up against.
How my dysfunctional relationships
In which I expect to be told I am a failure
Because that is all you have ever expected me to be
Have to do with how you brought me up.
I say I will seek to do everything better for my family
For my future
And yet, I already find the fingerprints of what you have done to me
Everywhere in my life
And my body and soul cry out
They say
"Don't be like your father!"
And yet, whenever I act in any way that even slightly resembles you
I want to tear my skin off
Bang my head against a wall so hard that my memory pours out my ears
So I don't have to hear your vicious comments about
My weight, my social skills or how I embarrass you
Is that the legacy you want to leave?
Daddy, I really don't mean to incriminate you
I just don't want you to wonder why I never came home
Or why I ran away with some man who doesn't really love me
But makes me feel human.
My heart is like a sword fight
And the scars run deep
Like train tracks, they trace every place I've been
But they don't lay out where I plan to go.
I can only hope that place is far away from here.

Anxiety is not a feeling
As some of you may believe
You wouldn't be alone
Because plenty of people place it in the same category as
Sad, angry, elated
But one of these things is not like the others.

You see, anxiety is everything and nothing
All at the same time.
Anxiety is when no matter how spacious the room is
It seems to be getting smaller
Until you can see every intricate detail on every wall
Each corner touches your skin
And flattens your chest
As it rises and falls
Your breath is getting short until it stops
And then you become as functional as a corpse
After all, isn't that what you are?

Anxiety is
When your love stands over top of you
Watching your diaphragm as it rapidly pulsates
Wishing he could hold your hands as they sweat profusely
Wanting to breathe life into your convulsing body
But instead, he cannot even grasp the concept
Of why you are not alright.

Anxiety is
Accepting that your reality is not truly real at all
And deciding to realize that people wish they could fix you
But understanding that they don't know what to do
And you don't either.

Anxiety is
Learning from all the
You're blowing things out of proportion's
And
You put to much pressure on yourself's
When you begin to have these panic attacks
In which you feel like death in imminent
Over trivial things.

Anxiety is
Being with people who love you
And still getting bursts of loneliness
That ignite and explode inside your pores and underneath your skin
The blood flowing silently through your veins reminds you
That you are all alone.

Anxiety is
Relating each and every thing you do
To how you are not adequate
And how you must take charge of everything.
It influences the things that tell you
"Make yourself throw up"
And
"Skip that meal today."
Most times, you shoe it away with every particle of strength that you have
Other times, you are not so lucky.

Anxiety is hard to personify
But it is.
And as I muster up the courage in my soul
And the hope in my being
I realize that those things need not be stored
Because I use them every day as I fight this battle.
We are all waging wars
Mine just happens to be against
This thing that is so intricately woven into the chemistry of who I am.
It is a part of me
But it is not all of me
And my voice is louder than this sickness.

She pines for me to come back to her.
Her broad shoulders, loose lips that really do sink my ship every time she speaks
She makes me feel like a Barbie doll on acid
As she critiques every element of my appearance.
My eyes are too wide and inquisitive
My hair isn't quite straight
And my weight?
Forget about it.

Yes, Bulimia has a funny way
Of making me feel like a failure
And yet I still hear her invigorating voice
Every waking moment I live.
It makes my skin come alive
My body jolt
My mind rise and fall
Still dizzy from the high she gives me.

People think
Going to a nutritionist will take care of her
Going on a diet will absolve her presence
Sure, she gets jealous
But that just causes her to inflict more pain upon me.

We have been fighting recently
And I threaten to take care of it for good
By taking a handful of whatever pills I can find to shut her mouth
She dares me, defiantly
"Do it."
One time, I almost did too.
Toxic relationships seem to be the most prominent kind I have

My therapist says she's only around because my ex reinforced every idea she put into my head
And my father did as well.
But frankly, I think she was there long before
Anyone ever encouraged me to skip a meal
Before anyone ever told me that my stomach has too much soft earth within it
To make me lovable
Before anyone made me feel like I wasn't enough.

She has all the influence in my *** life
And kind of reminds me of a jealous ****
For she encourages me to be promiscuous
But then her beady eyes give way
Scrutinizing every inch of my thick body
She whispers the number on the scale in my ear
And so I tell him to turn off the lights
So he won't have to look at the abomination
That stares back at me every day.

As his hands glide over my back
His fingers slide into the grooves between each individual rib
I **** uncomfortably and awkwardly
Because the fear that he is looking at the person I see
Could not scare me more.
She tells me that this fear is rational.

She is the third lover you did not invite into your bed space
But to call her Mia
To grant her personhood seems wrong
It seems sick.

She has a personality of her own
That's for sure
And none of my friends like her.
When she hurts me, I make excuses
"I've got it under control"
I say
"I can fix her."
Sure it's a lie
But I've made a career of lying to myself.

She is not a person
She is a wicked spirit
With a black curtain over any trace of a heart that was once there.
She tries to control me
She tries to become me.

And so,
Over the past month I've gained a few pounds
And while it makes my vice
Bulimia
Angrier than could be
She likes me skinny, she really does.
All that weight
That soft earth previously mentioned
The vessel I carry in my belly
It's all me.
It's all me
And none of her deceit has permeated it's entirety
So it remains
Purely me.