Did you forget me, my dear?
I know I've always been a backup plan
I know I'll always be there
When your world fails to turn.
You take me for granted
And of this, I am aware
So why does it unnerve me
Or bring me surprise when we stop talking
For days, weeks, months at a time
We don't interfere in each other's lives.
Then one day, one random day
We drip, drip, drop everything for each other
Did you forget about me, my dear?
This was bound to happen
It's less about forgetting
And more about selectively
Choosing not to remember.

Where I'm from
Most kids have never heard the words
"We can't afford that."
Where I'm from
Is marked by men in business suits
Who always seem to work a little too late
Where I'm from
No love for my curves.
"Are you really going to eat that?"
My largeness makes me a target
Where I'm from
Closet bulimics
Binge drink and purge in the morning
Fakeness is the measure of success
Why do you think the popular girls all look the same anyway?
Where I'm from
They act like choosing between a salad and a burger
Is actually a ******* decision.
Where I'm from
****** problem
Know at least three people who lost the light in their eyes
Because the monster blew out the candle
Where I'm from
It might as well be snowing year round
The people are so cold and white
Where I'm from
Nearly every parent is a narcissist
Believes their child is the next Ronald Reagan
He is their idol, after all
Where I'm from
There is no "two-party system"
Republicans win every local election
Where I'm from
They value the sanctity of life
Until one of those lives is an unarmed person of color
Then their tongues become laced with haughtiness and gunpowder
Where I'm from
Makes excuses for bad cops
Welcome to Small Town, America
Where we decorate our racism with jewelry
That way, no one knows the extent of its ugliness
Where I'm from
I ask questions, get shot down
Like Trayvon's body as it lies like an arrow in the street
Why is his life worth less than mine?
Where I'm from
Thinks abortion is ******
If we care so much about babies
Why do we not care that Tamir Rice was twelve
When his last breath was forced from his collapsing lungs?
A baby.
Where I'm from
My privilege becomes a loaded gun
But I will not fire
I try to keep the safety on
Safety on
Because I know I have the potential
To act on the only way of existing
That I have been taught
Where I'm from
At least half my friends' parents were divorced
I was told lying to get ahead
Is better than speaking up
Here is my voice for those who have been silenced by oppression
Where I'm from
Has shown me you cannot outgrow your bloodline
I have betrayal in my background
This is who I was meant to be
Where I'm from
They taught me to pray
So I pray daily
That these hands with the potential to shoot
Will instead pave roads for people
Who cannot currently walk down the street
Without the fear of taking their last steps.

Look at her.
The child you carried for nine months in your womb,
You do not know her at all.

You cannot bare the thought of her growing up.
She is dating boys,
And boys have hurt her.
They have taken advantage of this beautiful daughter of yours,
In every way possible.

She refuses to see herself as special.
The world has told her differently,
But she has something,
A gift, that they cannot steal from her.
One thing they cannot take away.

A glimmer in her eye,
A bounce in her step,
Even though she often wishes that she could cease to be,
Or that she could vanish,
She has the hope of a village.
And she carries it with her.

You will look at her and think,
"What a shame."
Much of the world has already written her off,
Calling her a lost cause.

She has fallen,
She has had problems,
But they are not her.

She has gone days without human contact,
She has lost friends for reasons out of her control,
And some of which were in her control.
She has lived a story
A series of chapters that other people have written for her,
But she is learning to become her own author.

So she is special.
She does not see it, you may not see it,
But she has hope.

Her beauty starts with her broken laugh,
Her gracious heart,
Her empathetic spirit.
It can destroy her,
But it builds her up as well.

With the curve of her smile
Her defined silhouette,
And her bright and opened mind.
She is a woman
In every sense of the word.

To Bill Cosby,
Are you proud now?
You slept well at night for almost twenty years
Has your conscience burst your stone cold heart yet?
You were called "America's Dad"
And some people refuse to believe you are guilty
Of ****** fifteen women
But just because they do not want to believe it
Does not mean it didn't happen.
You may have been ambivalent
But a benevolent ****** is still a ******.
Some say your victims should have reported it sooner
Well, I must say I understand their position
I waited seven years to disclose my assault
And no one judged me.
They only say this because they want a reason
To consider you innocent
And speaking of which
I cannot fully condemn you
Because you have yet to be convicted
But I refuse to take the word of someone
Just because they are ever so loved and reputable
Over fifteen women who were afraid.
Why would they come forward out of spite
Knowing the backlash would be gut-crushing
Fire-setting to the soul type of intense?
So, Bill,
Take your shame back
Take every bit of angst you instilled in these women back
Harbor it in your body
Let it fester under your skin
And rot away your soul.
Then maybe you will understand,
As will the world,
What it is like to be abused
By America's favorite family man.

I hear people echo
"I don't want to just survive
I really want to live."
But what if surviving is hard enough on it's own?
What if it takes every molecule of my strength
Just to get out of bed?
What if my past, and traces of it
Including those bits surrounded by ashes
Infect every crevice of my being?
How can I
"Live life to the fullest"
If my body and my mind do not want
To let me live at all?
Perhaps the worst part is
I have no desire
For any Prince Charming
Or dark, mysterious man riding in on a stallion
To come swoop in and save me from myself.

The 2012 US Military ****** Assault Agenda states that
One priority is to improve victim confidence
In reporting these incidents.
I'm glad in the four decades since Vietnam
The twenty four years since Desert Storm
The military is finally deciding to do something
About the **** monster it has always conceded to.
Tell me
How will you improve the confidence
Of those who have been consumed, chewed up and spit out
By vicious teeth that leave their marks on bare skin
On the torn sheets she was passed between
That are stitched together with fear?
Will you stop telling her that she has
"An adjustment disorder"
Funneling her into PTSD programs because you have no other place for her
Discharging her because you fear a scandal?
Squeaky clean reputations of the men you allow
To ***** their hands not with the blood of their enemy
But by the open wounds of their fellow soldiers
Entitlement is evident
When she sits in her apartment shaking
Because the man who attacked her receives an honor
A big production of a military funeral on television
While she was told lies about herself
Released into the world
Told she was dishonorable
Told she had a problem.
He had the problem
His sickness is now hers in the form of a pill
She swallows it as they tell her she is sick
She is wrong
But he is a martyr
Living in his glory even after death
But his secret dies with him.
So, United States military
If you want to improve the "confidence" of these victims
Instead of breaking their wrists
Try holding their hands.

My second semester of college
My sociology professor tells us not to qualify our input
Because women are socialized to be sorry.
My voice has been used against me
Taught the only things it is good for
Is saying "yes" and "I apologize"
We are taught to cater to a man's state of being
And his state in general
Why are we called patriots?
Because our existence contributes to the patriarchy.
Our very lives are designed to entertain the male psyche
We are the pits of water for the buffalo to come to
Indulge in
Drain of our substance for his convenience.
We become too weak to fight
As "meninists" quote the Bible
Saying we are not meant to be equal
But when their seventh grade knowledge of quack biology
Is proved to be bad science time and time again
Will anyone fight to liberate us?
My second semester of college
My New Testament professor
Tells us the biblical interpretation of gender inequality
Is bad reading.
What if God is woman?
Would this deity have her body torn from the towers of heaven
Would she be called a ***** for smiting the world
With a great flood?
If she is woman
There are many more floods to come.
We eat the body of Christ at communion
If God is woman
Her body will be eaten by vultures every day.
We stand, we recite as we have been so kindly instructed
"This is my body
Given for you."

Why did you take me off medication?
I said I was feeling better
You thought that meant ready
But just because the symptoms begin to dissipate
Does not mean the disease has been cured.
I never used it as a crutch
But now I start to feel as though it was one.
Something to keep me balanced
To keep me at a flat line
Rather than constantly spiking up and down
Left and right
In different directions.
I don't think a person can just stop being
Manic depressive and anxious.
PTSD doesn't simply
Go away.
That mood disorder, similar to bipolar,
That I cannot pronounce does not just
Fade out over time.
It is always there, it is just managed.
Now with no medicine
No therapy
No help from those who are supposed to be there for me
What am I to do?
I purge
I drink
I smoke
And that is the best of it all.
Shortly after I begin to sink.
You may think I am being melodramatic
But this is the life of a self-medicating person
Who has nowhere else to turn.

They tell you to eat from the hand that hits you
The particles of your soft cheek smashing through the atmosphere
The first time I felt this in public
I was fifteen
Two drunk men leaned over the counter
At my first job, they told me explicitly
How they would twist and contort my body
To please their selfish desires.
Room full of customers and coworkers
Managers who watched this happen
And still told me I was moving too slowly
These men wanted me to move faster, too
Wrap my hips around their waste
Submit to the items they wanted to spank me with
But I couldn't move fast enough
I went to the back of the store and cried.

They tell you to eat from the hand that hits you
Growing up I knew a girl
Whose boyfriend repeatedly came back for her
Thrusting his dark matter into her bones
Even when she said no
Throwing her around like a rag doll
Until she couldn't take it anymore
And decided to try throwing herself off a bridge instead
Everyone at school called her crazy
Even though she was being gutted of her existence
From the inside out.
Society said
All she was good for was ******* and blowing smoke
That she let a man break her body in half
And define exactly who she was.

They tell you to eat from the hand that hits you
You look into yourself and wonder
Why you can't see the light that used make your eyes lanterns.
We're taught that we must have perfectly chiseled bodies
To be welcome mats for men to slap their stamp of approval
Yet if they walk all over you
You are nothing.
When you're thirteen
Your father tells to stop dressing like a ****
He doesn't consider
That no matter how you dress
Men will look at you like you're a buffet
Ready to eaten.
When you're sixteen
Someone defines your worth by the absence of your virginity
They don't consider
That you someone took your innocence long before you made the conscious choice
To let someone else see the crevices of your body and spirit.
When you're twenty
Your friend tells you that you were asking for it
Because you got carried away with a drink in hand
That alcohol didn't make them do what they did
This is sexism
Because no one ever asks him "what were you wearing?"

They tell you to eat from the hand that hits you
Because we're teaching our girls wrong
Because we're not teaching our boys at all
These girls become women who believe their worth
Hinges on their ****** experience
Hinges on their beauty
Hinges on some man
They're socially designed to fall in love with.
They're told that he's responsible for holding the door for them
But if he enters her body with her consent
That's her responsibility
When will we stop teaching women
That they should expect to be violated
That they should expect to be silenced
That they need to be protected
Because the same men who believe they can **** a woman
And get away with it
Are the same ones who want to keep them
Safe and sound.

The first time I met remission
She was the warmth of a lover's arms
A stream of sunlight amid the fog
A snowflake in the desert.

The first time I met remission
Was the first time I sat in health class
And talked about dieting
Without feeling like the target
Nor the antithesis
Of the conversation.

The first time I met remission
I no longer felt like the "fat girl"
I embraced the fact
That fat was not a synonym
To my worst fears.
Fat not ugly
Fat not worthless
Fat still beautiful
Fat always beautiful

The first time I met remission
I knew exactly who she was
As these were not conscious thoughts
That I had the ability to switch off
Just as my bulimia
Did not function as a series of buttons I could control
At least not in the throes of it.

The second time I met remission
I felt my knees hit the bathroom tiles
My spine broke into the floor
But I was physically sick
And I did not get flashes of memory
Of the glamour and horror
In which my disorder used to manifest itself
Daily.

I continue to meet remission
I talk to her on a regular basis.
She showed up a year and a half into my recovery.
She is the guardian angel
I never knew I needed.

I continue to meet remission
She reminds my that even this
Is not the end.
She tells me that even the chapter of my life
Characterized by binging and purging
Characterized by acting inhumane
Characterized by hating myself
Is like ash in the water now.
She reminds me
That just because one chapter was unbecoming
My story isn't over yet.

You tell me
"you can be anything you want to
you have come such a long way
i am so proud of you."
If only you knew the real me.
if only you knew the nights spent
hunched over the toilet, gagging  
curled up in the bath tub, bawling
hacking away
at the skin i wish i could shed.
wavering between
trying everything life has to offer
and completely giving up.
You don't know where i am
or where i have been.
I am wasting that potential
that you have always known
was there.
It is rotting away within me.

I
Am
About
To

  C
       R
    U
         M
       B
        L
  *    E

The speed limit was 50,
And we were climbing 85.
You pushed me to go faster.
We knew we were in too deep,
Demolitions only lasts for so long.
It was too cold to take such risky measures.
We lived fast and loud,
And we never saw this disaster coming on,
Head on.
Freeze, spin, collide, blackout.

You spun me out
And totaled the mechanism of my heart.

I've always been against
The wasting of a mind
The desertion of a soul
The deterioration of a human spirit
I've never been a fan of
The desecration of a person
That sends them on
A downward spiral
Head first into the ground
I didn't appreciate
The way people who claim to be adults
Can take a young life and twist it
As if to blot out the sun
So these vulnerable eyes cannot see it.
I just never really liked
The pain, jealousy and depression
That a world like ours can cause
And how we can just sit back and enjoy
The detonation of a time bomb.

"Hi, my name is Sarah, and I haven't purged in almost four months."
That's what I tell group therapy sessions
Or online support groups
When it comes to my eating disorder.
Even better is when I talk about my cutting
How it's been two years since I gave way to the knife
Plenty of "oohs" and "ahs" and, my personal favorite,
"You're so strong"
Even though I still think about the sensation
Almost every day.

What I really am told
And sometimes even think myself
More frequently than not is
"My name is Sarah
The lying, conniving resident **** of my house"
Or
"My name is Sarah
Fat girl, so pretty if she'd just lose the weight
No longer ******, disappointing her family one day at a time"
"My name is Sarah
Just another basket case, pregnancy scare
One, two, maybe three times
How stupid can she be?"
"My name is Sarah
Child abuse survivor
Or is the appropriate terminology 'victim'?
Isn't she over it yet?"

That voice and the one that calls me
Strong, when the other calls me fat
Passionate, when the other calls me obnoxious
Potential, when the other calls me hopeless
Are constantly at war
Bloodshed is the goal.
Devil versus angel
Compete to be the main influence in my life

While really,
The only thing that I can say for certain is
"My name is Sarah
The human being."
And that is perfectly fine with me.

Child,
Didn't they tell you this is only
Casual?
As he presses his body against your
You climb on top of him
As he becomes your mountain
You become his avalanche.

His fingertips electrocute you
With every touch
A spark ignites
Dancing across your neck
Tantalizing your stomach
Bursting on the surface of your legs

He makes every inch of you feel special.
You see his ex-lovers and feel insecure
He pilfers every ounce of doubt you ever felt
And molds it into trust.
Magical, it seems

His smile stretches your dimples
Across the globe
Makes your smile light from the inside
Out.

And suddenly,
Your falls disintegrate
Your facade dissolves
Your falseness dissipates
Because
This doesn't feel so
Casual
Anymore.

Why does everyone keep telling me
I'm fine?
I am sick of people acting
Like they know what's best for me.
What's right
What's wrong
Like everything's that black and white.
Death and grief
Come in different tints and hues.
Tragedies like abuse
Still have various nuances.
And illness, whether physical or mental
Has different shades too.
So stop saying
I'll be okay
I'm pessimistic
I am over dramatic
I'm selfish
Could we just
Silence the clamor for a while?
All of this noise
Is giving me a headache.

I  
                                                    Thought
 ­                                                 I Might Die
                                         That Day As I Watched
                                   Your Lifeless Body Being Lifted
                         By Angels, and yet, lowered into the ground.
                                          Six feet deep, I refused to
                                         Throw dirt on you because
                                         I felt as though it would tar
                                         nish Your perfect complexi
                                         on The beautiful hand I wa
                                         nted to hold in mine Was n
                                         ow wrinkled and  withered
                                         I sank with you My blood s
                                         ank into my veins My heart
                                         sank into my chest My eyes
                                         sank into my head But I wa
                                         s not dead yet.  You  taught
                                         me to live So I could not fal
                                         l apart I bit my lips until  th
                                         ey bled Clenched my fists u
                                         ntil they went white Fightin
                                         g to hold on.  I could not cru
                                         mble  But as the coroner low
                                         ered you down  I realized th
                                         at I had no place to go *but up

i
To a mother who loved me
As only someone like you can.
Could I let myself leave you broken?
Then again,
I wouldn't stress you out anymore
And it would be the last time I'd make you cry.

ii
To a father who loved me
Though he never had the best way of expressing it.
Volatile and bitter were our interactions
But I never hated you like I said.
Did you mean it when you said I'm a disappointment?
I'm sorry, I promise I'll stop hurting this family.

iii
To a sister who loved me
But whom I hardly ever knew
We are total opposites, always
You are perfect and I am a perfect wreck
Keep on shining
And I'll get out of your way.
Don't cry for me, sweetie.

iv
To Matt, who says he loves me
He tells me day after day
That even though we cannot be together right now
I have his heart in my hand
And he will forever have mine.
And yet, we know it would be easier to live
Without each other
And that I by nature make things messy.
I'm sorry baby, I swear I'll stop.

I write the words down,
Let them spill onto the lines
A knife in my hand, I close my eyes
A shaking arm rises
And the other knocks it down.

You are stronger than this*
Something echoes
Vague, yet clear as glass
I fall to my knees and scream.

I will not give up on myself
For if I do
If I throw my life away
Then I will leave it's unfinished residue
It's dirtiest and most heinous parts
Here with you.
I love you too much
To burden you in such a way.

Yet is my life a blessing or a curse?
Will I bring you joy or grief
By continuing to search for every scrap of will I have
To fight on?

I must fulfill my journey on this Earth to come to that conclusion.
But this not so much a paradox of death or suicide
As it is the omnipresent conflict of a human life.

Broken words, broken hearts
Bones shatter like glass
Blood is spilled on paper
All it does is tell us who you are
Or what they have done to you.

The knife in your hand writes a story
All over your skin.
If we look closely, it answers questions
Questions link your past together.

What was your father like?
When did your friend die?
Did your uncle touch you?

Your answer to every question is
"I don't remember"
"It's not important."
"I don't know."

If we looked closely enough,
We would see the truth.
We would see that
Your yearning for control
Is seeping through your sweat soaked pores
Is secreted from the dry blood on your wrists
Is flooding from your tear stained eyes.

This is all you have
And you pray to God it's enough
To keep you alive.

Some people define 'feministing' as
"Girl, you crazy."
"You really think you can change the world?"
"Tough ****."
Or
"Nobody's ever gonna love you"
"Because of your fat body and fatter mouth."
Well, contrary to your opinion
I am fighting to be more than just a body and mouth.
A body because men do not have the right
To use it as their own personal welcome mat
And a mouth because I refuse to swallow them up
To be an opening in which they find their home.
My mouth is for more than pleasing a man
My body is for more than pleasing his eyes.
'Feministing' is not me being hotheaded
Or hating all men
No, I hate the men who feel they are entitled to use me
Who feel they can retreat into my breast
Into my womb
As if to mimic their mother's
Just because I came out a woman.
I hate the men who derogatorily call women
*****, *******, prudes
Just because they have too much ***
Or refuse to have it with a particular person.
Just because you came out a woman
Don't you know that it is your sole purpose
To give up autonomy over your own body?
Your own body is no longer your own
It is a maple tree that lovers carve their names into
He scratched his name into your bark
Labeling you as his
Labeling you as the government's
Labeling you as someone else's
Because you, a little girl
A helpless woman
Cannot be trusted to know yourself well enough
To own yourself.
I hate the society that instructs little boys to be entitled
And teaches little girls that
Just because you have a body
Just because you are a woman
You are asking for it
Your cleavage is a stamp that says you want him
And should you say the word "no"
You are inherently leading him on.
Should you say "yes"
You are a disgrace
A pariah
An outcast.
You, girl
Should not be ******
You, child
Should not be independent
You, woman
Should not be.
How can I be?
We, women
Do not have the option
Our voices are lost in the static noise around us
We cannot live
Because we are systematically shut down
When we try to be who we are.
So, next time you complain about 'feministing'
Give me a feasible alternative
About how to be who I am.

"Look in the mirror already
You're ugly, unattractive
And way too awkward
For anyone to give a **** about."

I step back, trying to whimper a reply.
All I can manage to stammer is
People like m--

"No, they don't"
She adds
"They just pretend like they do
So you don't flip out.
People don't like dealing with drama
And honey, you are drama.
People don't like fixing messes
And sweetheart, you make things messy.
You know you do."

I back down, submitting.
I think of a way to beat her
I go to the bathroom
Fix my unkempt hair
My crooked smile
My scarred and rigid skin
That has gotten that way from picking and cutting.

At this, she laughs.
"Try again, darling.
Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe you,
You worthless *******."

I face her, this time meeting her eyes.
But my voice still shakes.
I'm pretty
You know I am
I have something spe--

"No you don't, you little *****.
You're just a mediocre version of everyone else.
You have no talents.
The only thing you're good at
Is giving boys exactly what they want
Or letting them take it from you."

That one stings.
A tear rolls down my cheek
And she absolutely loves the defeat welling
Behind my bloodshot eyes.
My molestation was not my faul--

"But you could have stopped it, no?
Everything you do is a disgrace, and you know it.
You disappoint your parents
Your friends
Your teachers
Your family.
You are nothing.
No one will ever want you.
No one would give two *****
If you dropped dead right now.
They'd actually appreciate it."

This series of "you can't"'s
Gives me a sudden shock wave of confidence
Or is it bravado?
I glare at her square in the face
And say, with no stutter
Don't you dare ******* tell me
That no one would miss me if I died.

I said it, and it shut her up for a while.
Now the next step is
For me to bring myself
To really believe those words.

I used to pine for you.
Your acid flesh saturating my hair
Your naked crystal caressing my skin
And when I was scared
I would remember how it felt when
Your tide would gently and forcefully pull me out
How the twisted tree trunks of your love wrapped their branches around me
And I would think of you in rhymes that did not make sense
Prayers that made it seem like I believed in something
Maybe you were my God
Because part of me almost wanted to be impregnated with your love child
At one point or another
So maybe it would make you care.
That part of me disintegrated pretty quickly
As your words became synonymous with the crackling of fire
The snapping that bones make when they break and turn to dust
Your voice could decompose me in an instant
And you never seemed to mind.
So now, that I might have your offspring
Living inside of me
I don't know how to feel.
Taking a test would just reaffirm the fact that my future could be in shambles
Wires wrapped around themselves
A construction zone ready to ignite and explode
So I wait for my monthly offering
That Mother Nature so graciously delivers to my body
Reminding me that I am the only inhabitant in it thus far.
I fear for any child that even has a chance of existing
Because while it would be beautiful
It would be ****** into the middle
Of this beautiful toxicity.

Point the barrel of your gun
Directly at my head.
I can feel the metal
Still hot from your last victim
I know you mean business
So why don't I get scared?
I just want this to be over.
But no,
That would be too easy for you
You want to watch me continue
To suffer and pine for the old me.
You don't **** me
As that would ruin your fun.
You simply torture me
With the option of death.
But is it a threat or a temptation?
Who am I kidding?
You would never let me die
As if you did
You could not admire what you have destroyed.

According to Christian tradition
Lucifer was once God's favorite angel
Until he believed he could control things
A pride which turned disastrous.
Studies show many human addictions
Start this way too.
It started out as an almost healthy desire
To trim the extra fat from my bones
I was called disciplined
Told it was so good that I was finally taking care of myself
It went from eating healthy
To crunching numbers in the food I was eating
To stuffing myself like a taxidermist
To ripping every inch of stuffing out of my gut
I realize I have a problem
When I can't recognize myself in the mirror
When I can't eat a meal without going to the bathroom afterwards.
They never told me I was sick
Say "you look so good, honey
Have you lost weight?"
I tell them I'm suffering
Say "you don't look bulimic."
Every other girl who got my kind of sickness went to the hospital
I was told to smile
As they made an example of me
See, they thought everything I touched turned to gold
But it was only skin deep
When I stuck that finger out
To touch the back of my throat
It pulled a trigger.
My esophagus was rotting from the inside out
Am I still beautiful?
Will I still be beautiful
When the only thing left of my body
Is its ashes?
No matter what size my body is
There will always be a coffin small enough for it
My clavicle wants to catch my tears
Until I will not let myself cry
Because the brine in my eyes
Increases salt retention
Causing my face to swell and look pudgy
You're doing this to yourself anyway, darling
I evolve from a hawk to a dove
Go from dominating to meek, in the background
My wings are so small I cannot even fly well
Can't see food without feeling sick
Even now, I want
I want to scrape the back of my throat
Until my body releases its bile
I want to layer my inside walls with magazine covers
Say look what you could've been been!
But you failed
You were a bad bulimic
But at the time
You were never "good" enough to get into treatment
The backwards logic of an eating disorder
As it feeds itself with the subject's insecurities
It's like a token economy
I put coins in
My inadequacies solidified
And I become motivated to get skinny
Notice, I didn't say healthy.
Then, I remember
I am worth getting better
My veins, the nerves in my teeth
They nearly collapsed and gave up on me
But I will not give up on me
I will recover
This is not a health conscious habit
It is writing my obituary for me
I am recovering
I am progressing
This attempt to look like Reece Witherspoon gone awry
Is no more.
I am becoming myself again
Falling back in love with my thighs and my mind
I am healing, everyday
The devil in my brain
Will not hold me bound
I have created an equally powerful God against this
I keep praising her
It is my own name
She is my better self
My real self
And she is watching over me.

Do you recognize me?
Body so sturdy
Heart so loud
Voice so obnoxious
Is bounces off concrete
Echoes through the mountains
Stand up strong kid
Stand up strong.
Do you recognize me?
I have changed.
My body is a burden
Like a weight I drag by a chain
Tied to my feet.
My heart is always breaking
It is a china doll
Delicate and weary.
My voice makes no sense
The words I say make me feel alone
The things I do make me want to crumble
I am not the same.
Do you recognize me?
Darling, last time I saw you
We were happy.
The electric sky was mine
I could walk away
Because I was finally okay.
Do you recognize me?
If you don't,
You are not alone
Because neither do I.

I had someone
who should have been a friend
ask me today
"Can't you just have a normal relationship
for once?"
My response
though choppy and unrehearsed
was
"I mess around with who I want to.
That is 'normal'
for me."
If I do not judge you for being abstinent
why do you insist on criticizing
my choices?
Plus, I do not know
when you got to decide what is 'typical'.
***?
Yes, I lost my virginity at fourteen
and shockingly,
I am regret-free.
However,
sometimes I do wish
that some sense of normalcy
would return to other areas of my life.
I wish I could remember what it looks like again.

When I was sixteen,
My grandpa lost me.
Normally, people would say that I lost my grandfather
He lost me
The beautiful, articulate child
That questioned everything
Became stone.
And I was scared when I wiped away the fog
To see his lifeless eyes before mine
To see his burnt flesh in a perfectly polished box
And my flesh began to burn
My body began to incinerate
As my limbs were ripped from me
And thrown into the furnace
As the cavity was torn inside my chest
And fear became normal.
Now, I hear the song you used to sing to us during Christmas services
Like broken glass being dragged across my face
Like gunpowder ignited in my eardrums
Like a flood inside my veins
My hands are waterfalls that ebb and flow across your picture
And my tears are the bits of brine that hit the gifts you've given me
Now, I am preparing to face a new storm
When I talk on the phone with my Pop Pop
Who is sicker than my parents will tell me
I hold the floodgates closed with white knuckles
The drugs pumped into his system are a dam for his approaching torrent
Just as the lump in my throat is mine.
This Christmas is no celebration
As my one beloved grandpa is on Heaven's shore
And the other is crashing into the waves
That leave me drowning.
We fight off different floods
But he can only fight for so long.
Either way
Both will prove to be devastating.

I am feeling myself float
Haven't been so out of body in quite a while
Haven't felt so emotionless in quite a while
Freeze.
The ghost hanging over me is not mine
I smell your skin like basement musk
And the fertilizer on mushroom fields
Mr. 2004
When I was seven and you locked me in a dog cage
When I was seven and you made my body your jungle gym
It was the year of feeling sick to my stomach
Even when my food agreed with me
It was the year of going to the nurse every day in first period
You see,
Even second graders know what is and isn't supposed to happen to their bodies
Even when they don't have a name for it
Didn't have a name for it until I was fourteen
I told my guidance counselor every crevice your hands found
Every game you made me play on your body
He called it molestation
I had to excuse myself and *****
All over the white porcelain walls down the hall
He called my daddy
It was the first time I'd ever seen the man cry
I felt my body become a gun that was wielded against me
I could not hide from my own existence
So I became a ghost again.
Now,
Morphing into a spirit has become my superpower
I feel my body shaking
And I rise up to the ceiling
Watching myself self-destruct before my own eyes
Only offering a helpless hand
But, like Ebeneezer Scrooge to his past self
Remaining invisible
My body combusts under pressure
Crumbles with heat
I am my own remains
Dancing in the rubble
I feel my Winnie the Pooh shirt I wore to his house
Become a noose, tied tightly
I long to feel in my own body
So I look for feeling in someone else's
Anyone else's
I lie beneath his jutting hips
Moan the names of the ones I remember
They keep ******* back for more
Create for yourself an alter ego
Jane Doe?
That is the name they will brand to you
When they find your body
Still lifeless, with him still between your legs
Don't die, girl
Pick yourself up, girl
Stop being stupid, girl
Why, when I tell this struggle in a poem is it eloquent
But when I explain it to people in real life am I a ******* *****?
I lie in the dirt
Remember how to say my own name
Life reparative therapy, show me how to breathe
Form letter into thin air
Remember, excellence is relative
Remember, you are more excellent than this relative
Remember, you still exist, dear woman
Create a fist
And rise.

You are the gun to my head
The water underneath my feet
The chill in my bones
The part of my mind that wanders
To deep and desolate ruins
That scare the **** out of me.
You have used me
Trashed me
Destroyed me.
I call myself compassionate
And yet
Sometimes, I wish you would hurt too.

Can you see my tears?
Welling behind hot and swollen eyes
They push and ****, hoping to escape
But I will not let them.
They are eager little monsters
And it takes all of my strength not to burst.

Can you hear my screams?
In the middle of the night
After drunken decisions
And hungover memories
That's when my flashbacks hit the hardest.
So, I shriek
But it falls on deaf ears
They either are not audible
Or people choose to overlook my
Lonely disposition.

Can you ******* air?
It is creeping and crawling
Drenched in sweat.
Salty and metallic flavors collide inside my mouth
As if some sort of blood began to flow
In one place that I wish it would not.

Can you smell my fear?
They say in dogs it reeks
A certain poignant stink.
In me, what is the scent?
Does it seep through my skin
And secrete out of my pores?
I feel myself trembling
I am not able to escape.

Can you feel my pain?
I want to send you signals
Tell you I am not okay
Or am I okay?
I just want to know
I just want to hold on a little longer
I just want you to notice
Please tell me, just once,
"We can talk if you want to."
And mean it.

They cannot see these
Classic and obvious signs.
They do not know.
They do not care
They do not  **listen.

I found you one day
unassuming and shameless
and I liked this innocent boldness I saw
shining through your face

You are my glimmer of hope
my beacon of light
when the darkness consumes me.
you see my blackened soul
and thaw my frosty heart
the way that no one else can
or ever could.

Why do I allow myself to feel this?
with other men, the initial thought is
I must stay guarded
don't let them in
hurt them before they hurt you.
with you, none of those thoughts enter my mind.

I am scared that you will be scared of me
but I allowed myself to show
you the ugliest parts of me
and yet you still tell me I am beautiful.

Somehow,
you do not think I am a basket case.
you are the only person I have ever met
who makes me believe that I really can get better.

I cry in the shower,
Or the rain.
Because it feels like someone else is crying, too.

Tears fall on me,
Encompass my skin,
Caress my body
Touch my calloused face.

It is sick how it almost brings me peace,
That someone else is breaking simultaneously to me.

i.
"I do not support war
                                 in any context."
My father told me making blanket statements such as this
                     is foolish and naive.
   No one will ever take me seriously
sometimes war is necessary.
                    No.
The pacifist in my bones
             hates bloodshed
                       hates       violence.
The recovering self mutilator in my chest
              was only okay with it
                    if it was directed
                                                                                                 at myself.
War removes
                                   flesh and bone
                                   blood and life
                                   love and hope.
It makes it impossible even to live in the world
even to be able to
                                       breathe.

ii.
"People can coexist
                 once prejudices are eradicated."
Father calls this
                  "liberal propaganda"
   He'd rather bask in his ignorance
Listen to Fox News
                                                 Where all his "facts" are spat at him
By old white dudes and
                        coined hot blondes.
Freddie Gray did not need to die
                                                        Michael Brown did not need to bleed
                             Eric Garner was merely trying to
                                                    breathe.

iii.
"Anxiety isn't just
                                stress."
My mother tells me in the midst of the storm
                                                                       That it is not even
                                                            raining.
She continues to hammer the belief
                     into my brain
that if I would stop stressing myself out
                                                     *I would be okay.
Mom,
                                                                             I'm not alright.
Mom,
                                                                             I seldom get sleep at night.
Mom,                                                              
                                                                             I can't hold on much longer.
Mom,
                                                                             I can't even
                                      breathe.

iv.
"You feel depression everywhere."
                                  This one is true
in part.
Sometimes,
                                                                             depression is a freight train,
bruising your sickly lungs
smashing your broken heart
pressing a knife into your back
                                                                                                       and twisting.
But other times,
                                                                           depression is the absence of
                                                                                                            all feeling
And that
                                                                                                     is all you feel.
                                                         the remainder of the knife in the back
                                                         the shatter pieces of your broken heart
                                                         the shriveled up portions of your lungs
leaving you constricted so tightly
you find yourself struggling to
                                              breathe.

v.
"When I fall,
                     I fall hard."
I sit on the suede couch
                                                                                   in my shrink's office.
We try to gather the scattered bones
                                                                       I lost after falling off the wagon
                                           yet again.
Relapse will never stop *******,                                  not because of the behavior
               but because of how much faith you lose
                                                                                                         in yourself.
Questions flood your body's once stable floor
                                               How could I let this happen?
   &nb

I am sitting in a classroom during my freshman year of college
Reading about **** and infidelity
Western literature,
Where Jupiter can **** virgins for sport
Where Hamlet can assault Ophelia
And it's okay because he is pretending to be insane.
I see my assailant's face in Hamlet's
The boy who told me he was sorry six months later
Because he had been dealing with some things in his head
I see my assailant's hands in Zeus's
At seven years old, clearly a ******
But you can use my tongue as a gag
As you cause me to choke on my pleas for peace
You see, throughout the ages
Women have had their tongues used as gags
And as nooses
Like when Maya Angelou writes about taking back her body
We say it is ******
When Maya Angelou writes about ****
We rip her words from school curriculums
When Ovid writes about ****
We say it is literature
When women write **** into the folds of their skin
We call them attention ******
When men pen abuse onto paper
We say it is eloquent
Say it is mythology
Watching a friend get brutally drugged and date ***** is no myth
Burning her ******'s name out of her mouth is no myth
Replaying my own movie of childhood abuse at seven
And assault at sixteen is no myth
We treat women's narratives of violation as stories
Just ask Bill Cosby.
As I am forced to read about my own history for entertainment
As I hear my father say how college girls cry **** to get attention
That they should be more careful
How am I supposed to trust my own memory?
When everything around me tells me
I am lying
How am I supposed to trust my own experience?
My tongue keeps getting stuck inside of itself when I try to tell my story
Because I fear people will not believe me
Maya Angelou writes that she knows why the caged bird sings
But I know what keeps it silent.

From the outside,
No love is present
And no love is received.

I am cold,
Stone hard.
I want to let you in
But is there anyway I can guarantee
That it will be okay?

I don't want you to see
The goons that lurk beneath.
You will run, turn and hide
It seems to be a common theme in my life.

There is no way that anyone can love me.
I am not pretty to look at
And am even messier underneath.
I don't deserve to be cherished.

Discomfort in my own skin
Has caused me to desperately search
For alternative ways to change me
But to no avail.

I have secrets that run like rivers
Through the depths and canyons of my soul.
Things I carry in suitcases
Everywhere I travel
Holding my breath that no one will open them
And that they will not burst.

Soon enough, however
I am going to burst.

If only I slept once in a while,
But instead I lay awake.
I cringe every time I hear a noise,
And this old house creeks too much for me to stand.

I clinch my lips as I stare
At a blank ceiling, where broken shadows dance
I see you and I.

I play movies in my head,
Like the day he attacked me
With every detail perfect and distinct.

I remember my love, as he pulled me in close
Held me against his chest and kissed the crown of my head.
But then things ended, almost abruptly
But I love that boy too much.

I paint pictures of friends I've lost.
But they still leap and laugh vividly.
They are not gone either.

Some ******* shines his brights in my window.
This snaps me out of things periodically.
Well what do you know?

It is now tomorrow morning.

One in eight boys will be sexually assaulted this year
One in eight of our brothers, coworkers, fathers, boyfriends
One in eight will be told "men don't get *****"
One in eight will be feel their masculinity being stripped from them
One in eight feel as attached to it as their muscle is to bone
One in eight never expected this to happen
One in eight will unjustly be told to question their sexuality
One in eight will hold it against themselves
Their shame is a blanket
One in eight are told they are defenseless
Eight in eight have experienced overly sexualized culture
In which they are told they must be strong, bold, *****
All the time
Eight in eight are told lies about their own bodies
About their own minds
Eight in eight are expected by the media
To be promiscuous and want *** all the time
So when that one in eight experiences unwanted touching, kissing, fill in the blank
They feel weak
They feel defenseless
They feel "unmanly"
To my brothers who have been sexually assaulted
You are not weak
You are not merely a statistic
And you are not alone.

I cannot get up, cannot move.
My body is limp and shaken
I am clinching onto things I never had.
Take my freezing hand
Pretend you know how I feel.
I want to roll over and sleep again.
I do not know if I can make through today.
This
Is
Not
My
Day.

Why is it that I never feel well anymore?
My eyes are tired,
Shown by the bags that carry them humbly.
My smile is weary,
And when you see it,
It is fake.

My stomach turns and flounders
In the dead space of limbo.
I watch you walk by from a distance,
If I have any memory of him and his hands,
His body, his snake eyes
My face begins to burn

Shaking hands,
Hot, fiery breath
My chest feels tight
And my shoulders tense.

My mind says to run far away,
But my feet will not grant me
The great gift of movement.
I quite wish they would
Be more accommodating.

Finally, my body is exhilarated
As the blast of cold air from the outside world hits me.
You can almost see the steam
Rolling off my back and out my mouth.

As much as I hate this
Sick and relentless state
I can finally feel my heart beating again.

With the
Desire the purge
Craving to cut
Need for escape

And the
Opportunity to drown out
My body's grievances
Why wouldn't I?

I'd be lying if I said
I haven't done it
I didn't have have weak days
My body doesn't ache for that
Lovely and disgusting
Physiological quench.

And yet they tell me
I'm lazy
I don't do enough
It doesn't matter that
I'm on my feet for eleven or twelve hours at a time every day
I'm working my *** off
I'm still recovering from an eating disorder.
But no, it doesn't matter
I still have no right to complain in their minds.

But wait**
I am a pretty good secret keeper
Sometimes.
Is it possible that
I am too talented at keeping my emotions locked away?
Maybe, just maybe,
They just don't *know.

You think I want to be this way?
Lonely, afraid and depressed.
The muted light cannot shine through the window anymore.
You think I blocked it out.

So I'm asking for it then?
According to you, I'm petty and whiney
Like a lost dog or a child.

And speaking of children,
It was my fault that he touched me then too.
Seven years old, but yet, I should have known better.
As if by some gift of God, I'd know to resist.

These are the elixirs society has force fed me.

Addiction.
no one quite knows
how to define it.
for one in the throws of this.
is it Beautiful
or is it Vile?
Selfless
or is it Vain?
one can only speculate.

Recovery.**
another riddle
with a hint of ambiguity
that a person can only
hope to determine the meaning of.
Painful
or Freeing?
Pointless
or Meaningful?
i can never tell
if it is only here for a season
and leaves just as easily.
just as swiftly.

as for now
i am still a prisoner, held captive
to this paradox.

Poke, *****, stab
It might as well be a knife,
Cutting through your flesh on every fingertip.
Yet you find it on something so beautiful.
The only way you can hold a rose
Is by getting through the thorns.

I think I'll take my chances.

I cannot continue to compartmentalize
Each aspect of my life
Individually
Separately
In cardboard boxes on wooden shelves
Waiting to be moved into one house.

My existence does not work in cubicles
Sectioning off each area of who I am
One by one
9-5 jobs
Some work overtime.

And yet, I do this so frequently
I continue to store things away
In the back ruins and corners of my mind
They go into storage units.
I guess I picked up the technique after being abused
So I could dissociate from the experience.

But I cannot keep putting on different identity hats
Sarah, the child abuse victim is a black beanie
Sarah, the ex-cutter and ex-bulimic is a red bandana
Sarah with daddy problems is a knit cap
They are all mutually exclusive
They cannot occur at the same time.

So why can't I continue to shelve these things
Intricately and one by one?
Because I am Sarah
The whole person
The individual
The human being who deserves recognition for her progress
Not her vices.

I said goodbye to the tree that afternoon
The one I sat always sat by as a child.
As I began walking away.
I knew that night I had no intentions of waking up
The next morning
If the knife or the pills had their way with me
It was like a potent *******.

I said goodbye to my phone
As I turned it off
And stuffed it under my bed.
Maybe no one would find me, call me
And everything would turn out fine.
No one has to hurt anymore
Isn't that the point of this endeavor?

I said goodbye to my family and friends
Through chicken scratch on a bright yellow post-it note.
"Mom, I love you" really meant
Mom, you are my hero
Even if you have made a lot of mistakes
You are the gentlest person I have ever met
I can never repay you for loving me unconditionally.
Please, keep loving me even as I lay beneath the dirt.

"Daddy, I love you" really meant
Daddy, I just want you to think I am enough.
I just want to feel like you love me no matter how I look.
I just want to be Daddy's girl
That's all I have ever wanted to be.
Please, don't be mad at me.

"Heather, I love you" really meant
Heath, when you find me
And you probably will, because you're always sneaking into my room
Don't look at me this way
So decaying and lifeless and ugly
Even though I have never been as pretty as you
None of this is your fault at all
Please, don't hate me or be ashamed of me.

I said goodbye to you all
But goodbye could never say enough.
No words that I could string together
From any of the twenty-six letters in the English language
Would ever explain even the very beginning
Of how my life disintegrated within my hands
Like sand, it dissipated into the air
And became one with the wind.

I said goodbye to myself
For I no longer knew who I was
Clearly, I was meant to lose myself along the way
Because once I awoke, ****** and cut up
I decided a change must be made.
My life became a work in progress
And while I have been far from perfect
I am improving
And that is all I can expect of myself.

I said goodbye to suicide notes
Written in pages of books
My pen was my dagger
That furiously cut away at the paper beneath its blade.

I said goodbye to the pills, the knives, the abuse
And eventually, although it took another year and a half,
To the bulimia that held my life captive during the lag time.

Never again will I attempt to say goodbye to this life
That left scars on my hands and wrists
And blisters on my heart and soul.
Never again will I attempt to check out
Because I choose to live by saying
"Hello."

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.

That weekend
      I felt
Love
For my gay best friend
As he was the first person with whom I felt completely comfortable
Sharing my attraction toward a woman.
The first time I felt like a woman
And I felt like he was a man.
We laughed until sun melted into moonlight
Why would I go to prom with a straight boy?

That weekend
       I felt
Fear
Taking a serpentine system of public transportation for the first time
Getting lost in an unfamiliar state
And my parents knew about none of it.
I grew up fast that day
Swallowed my pride at the same time
Reading colorful street signs an asking strangers for directions
I met a kind bus driver who clearly felt sorry for me
Let me ride for free
And gave me his number to make sure I was safe.

That weekend
     I felt
Odd
As my best friend's church was all Asian
People looked at me a little backwards.
A mysterious boy with dark eyes was the only reason
I didn't get lost in the shuffle.
I finally felt what it was like to be a minority
And while everyone there was accepting of me
It wasn't particularly comfortable.
It was humbling for me to see
What others go through on the daily.

That weekend
    I felt
Grown
First trip on my own
Check.
Meeting my college roommate
Check.
And that same mysterious boy?
He was my tour guide
When my friend was teaching little children
About Jesus.
I wanted him to tour other things
And I fell like a brick for him
But I failed to mention
He was not just some teenage boy from a middle school dance
That's so Disney movie.
He was a man
With broad shoulders and a college education
And a faith so deep
I could only wish to swim in it.

When you are young
They tell you to guard your heart
Fear the boy who will put it through the shredder
Stomp on it
Spit in it
But they do not tell you to fear
The man who thinks no means go harder
Move faster
Scream louder
It seems like your fear is supposed to stop at fifteen
Until you learn that guarding your heart means guarding your body
Until you learn not to walk alone at night
Even though there is a better chance you will be ***** by a friend
Than a stranger
This is not a "protect yourself because you are weak" poem
Since when has protecting yourself worked anyway?
No, you are strong
Our bodies are turn into fists that punch through the drywall
As he throws you around, you curl up into yourself
This is not a "protect ourselves because we are weak" poem
Since when has protecting ourselves worked anyway?
No, we are strong
I become the body hovering above your ghost
As he stops briefly but continues to shove himself inside of me
This is not an "all men are evil" poem
Since when was this conversation about that anyway?
No, you are good
You are the phone call at four AM
You are the "can I do anything to help you?"
You are the "it isn't your fault"
My heart did not break because of emotional teenage angst
It broke because a man knew he could snap my body in half
It broke because she was told she was not credible
It broke because there will always be a man
Who holds my power in the very thread of his being
And he knows the consequences will be minimal.
When you are young,
They will tell you to guard your heart
Instead,
Rip yourself open
Fight the system which allows this to happen
Go before the judge and let yourself reveal the most intimate parts of this misogynistic
This oppressive
This **** culture
Fully exposed.