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.

I have always been accustomed to cleaning up everyone else's messes.
At work I literally do it.
With my friends, I'm the peacemaker.
With my family, I always offer to assist financially
Or I'm not given a choice.
So why can't I seem to get my own life in check?
Why is my own slew of pain
Anxiety, worthlessness and loneliness
Just settling like oil on top of water?
Now, in the places I used to fix things
I'm breaking them.
Where I used to clean up messes
I'm making them.
At work I'm combative or panic stricken
Sometimes even both.
At home, sometimes I get mouthy
But when I offer to help with my parents' money problems
It just makes it worse.
And it's not like I have any friends anymore
I shut them all out
Or vice versa.
Now, I know this is a ramble
But all I want to know is
When will someone come to save me?
When will one of the people
Who I used to protect
Step in to help me
Clean up my messes
The way I fixed theirs?

I feel gross every time you enter the room.
I wish you weren't around so much.
You convinced me things would be okay,
And I was a big girl,
I knew what I was getting into.
Or so I thought.

You walk near me,
Have the gaul to touch my arm or say hello,
And I find my self overcome with nausiousness.
And we didn't even sleep together,
Because I wouldn't let you go that far.

What can I even call it?
It wasn't ****,
Because there was no *** involved.
And I did not say "no",
But I was not in a clear state of mind.

You knew that.
And you took advantage.

You lied.
You manipulated.
You stole.
And according to them,
This is all my fault.

I'm the one who has to pay now,
And I shower up to four times a day
If I see your face.
You make me sicker than sick.

Thank for nothing, scumbag.

Anxious hand
Stop shaking.
They can hear it rattling in your bones
All the broken pieces of your soul
Clanging together
Like chimes in the wind.

Nervous heart
Stop beating.
I want you to move
Only less.
Make me remember the times you beat
Because I was excited
The times I was able to feel something
Before this disease took me hostage.

Twisted mind
Stop falling.
The trap is holding you in it's talons
Like a wounded child
You cannot fight the claws
Attempting to grind you into bits.
You are sick
But they only see
Your clutter.

Broken body
Stop fighting.
When you try to resist the disorder
This dysfunction
This conqueror
You only hurt the very one
You have been trying to save.

The body breaks
My hands begin to snap at the wrist
My bones splinter, inch by inch
My skin removes itself from its tissue
My eyes can no longer see anything but darkness

The mind manipulates
My brain pretends things are there that are not
My hallucinations have never been so real
My PTSD has never been so confining
My mental illness has never isolated me this much
My thoughts have never been so tricked by fear

The heart hurts
My feelings lead me to become emotional
My conscience leads me to become guilty
My expectations lead me to become broken
My love for another leads me to become sterile

I fade
I die out
I become dust over the ocean
Over the grass
Over my fleeting bones
But You never will.

Now as my loneliness rages
And fire burns away my shell
I will learn to rely on You
You alone
I will soldier on
With You as my commander.

I see you and my heart stops.
You are cold as ice
And you think you're that smooth.
You freeze me
And frostbite plagues my extremities.

My panic attack goes something like
Loneliness in a crowded room
Shivering when I'm burning up
Dizziness when I'm sober
Nausea on an empty stomach.

It's the feeling of wonder.
Looking off the edge and thinking
"What if?
Considering the plunge.

My paper skin feels as if it is tearing
And my glass bones are breaking.
My porcelain nails want to scratch
Rip me out of my body
So I don't feel this way.
So I don't feel at all.

How did I let this happen?
I shut myself down
And this is all I have left.

The smog in my lungs
The blade in my grasp
The bottle on the floor
The finger in my throat.

They keep me numb to your glare.
They are an effort to make sure
That I continue to lose feeling in my soul.

When I came home and found you lying on the couch
Eating vanilla ice cream and watching Oprah
On a Thursday
I knew something was wrong
I always wonder if the way I taught you
To tie little pink bows at the end of your wrists
Cut off your circulation
Causing you to slice them open
Watching the blood pool beneath you in the bathtub
It rippled, so smooth and gently
So ladylike, as you have always been taught
My girl, I know you watched me in the mirror
As I synched my waist together with different diet regiments
Plucked the hairs above my brow and beneath my chin
As if my skin grew flowers beneath its surface
Now, as I find deposits of ash and *****
Hidden in the folds of your restlessness and depression
I know it is more than teenage angst
But I wait until I can longer deny your illness
I will tell you you are not sick
Even as the blood creeps up your forearm
The scabs are gasping for sunlight
As they peak beyond the seams of your sleeve
When you are sent home from school for being suicidal
We wonder why you never told us
But you did, my girl
My brilliant girl
Though your lips never formed the words
How could we not have seen this coming?
Your father will get defensive
His armor raised as you become child yet again
Fifteen, not girl, not yet woman
It will be hard for me to ignore you during an episode
But baby, I only do this because I love you
There were no training wheels before we were dropped
Into unfamiliar terrain
This sickness is a battlefield for us, too
But we still fear the untapped power of those little white pills
It is not that we do not want you to get better
We just don't want to lose
The little girl we have always known.

Water falls onto my hands
Its fluidity saturates my pores
Its gentle flow breaks my spine
I am on my knees now
*I am yours, alone.

When you see his mother
You remember.
You remember the fear in your eyes
Terrified at the thought of being *****.
You remember the trembling in your voice
For the times he sent earthquakes through your body.
You remember the efforts it took to restore your soul
You were not an easy fix.
You took more time that he gave you
When he had his way with you
A child.
He got his way with a lot of things
He got his way when you were too fearful to take him to court
He got his way when he left no trace of evidence behind
He got his way when your father refused to see him again
But when you see his mother,
Roses in your hair
All dressed in black
Teardrops stain your cheeks like thumbprints
Pressed hard against your face.
You are not dressed for her, no
But for her brother
But for your grandfather.
When you see his mother
The damage he has done to her is comparable
To the damage he has done to you.
She cannot walk out the door
Without knowing her son is a child molester.
You cannot walk out the door
Without feeling guilty for what you have done to her.
It wasn't your fault, what happened to you
But in an odd way
You believe what happened to her
Was.
So together, synchronized
You paste on a face
You put yourself together
Opposite sides of the East Coast
Yet so in tune.
When you see his mother,
You forget yourself for a moment
As a river of guilt gushes out of your soul
You want to run
To, from, with her
You cannot escape.
To, from, with her
Your guilt lies.

Mama, there is no question
That you love me
With every particle of your being.
Mama, I'm sorry I told you
That things would be okay.

Mama, I'm sorry I said
That he would be just fine.
I really believed it too.
I lied, unintentionally
And now this is all my fault.

Mama, I should not have to be strong for you
As you would never ask that of me.
But I cannot stop myself from trying
*And failing.

You took a twisted part of me
And made it utterly broken.
Will I ever be able to live a repaired life?
Maybe, but not because of you.
You told me I was fat
When I was bulimic
You knew I had an eating disorder
Yet we talked about it maybe once
And you continued to pressure me to be the best at everything.

No empathy in my home
No, not for a disturbed, attention-seeking child
Who is really more damaged and broken
Than you will ever understand
Even if you don't care to see that.
To you,
She is just a selfish spoiled brat
Even if that was true, who's fault would that be again?
Who is trying to make your life miserable.

I wish you knew
That I cry in my bed every night
Curled up like a little child
Wishing I was lovable.

I wish you knew
Every time I purged
Back in that dark time in my life
I kept playing back the words
Daddy wants me to be thin
He won't yell at me anymore if I lose weight.
Even though that is a lie that still penetrates every ounce of my being
Because I know I will never be good enough for you.

I wish you knew
Every time I looked at the scale
I saw your face
And the number always made you angry.
I would tell myself how you would be angry with me
If I did not lose at least ten pounds in a week
So I would go harder.

I wish you knew
Every time I even began to believe I was pretty
You took that dream from my hands
And squashed it between yours.
You stole a lot of my self-confidence
And I do not know if I can ever forgive you for that.

Every cut
Every purge
Every tear
Every drop of self-hate
Every bit of longing for acceptance
All stem from you.

They are all for you
So take them as gifts
And treasure them against your cold heart
As maybe they will finally thaw it out.

My little sister had become an entitled *****. Her thirteenth year had brought terror on us all. I can't really complain, however; I had been the same way at thirteen and fourteen. It's funny how I act like I'm so much older and more mature now. At almost fourteen, I was having *** and sneaking around and I'm still doing that. However, I was in the god-awful scene phase of my life, not that we haven't all been there with the clip-in colorful extensions and the emo band tees. My sister is in the slutty Hollister model phase of her life. I feel like we all go through on or the other, or if you're lucky enough you go through both. My body type was always bustier and hippier than any Abercrombie model that I had ever seen.

My dad and I had always **** heads. It flares up when my mom isn't around to be the peacemaker. Even when she is home, we still argue frequently, and we take a lot of low blows at each other. Yet he also expects me to be perfect. He's always been on my case about my weight, my friends, my clothes, my hair, my personality...I can barely breathe around him.  Nothing I do is good enough for him and frankly, I've stopped trying to please him.

And me? Well, I'm just the black sheep, the dark horse, the family **** up. The **** up who isn't all that smart, in school or in life. The **** up who can't lose weight, and who takes the heat for the fact that majority of her family is overweight. The **** up who gets blamed for confrontation she gets into with her sister. The **** up who can't play sports and is just plain clumsy. The **** up who can carry a pitch, but will never be a star. The **** up who can't cook, dress or act right. The **** up who will never honor her family. The **** up who's always been subpar in every area of life. The **** up who has nothing to offer the world.

thank god for the battle
between me myself and i
i've been dancing with my pain
drinking with my demons
sleeping with more than just a little
teenage angst
making out in the back room
with none other than depression himself

i have
so many beautiful things surrounding me
but they **** me
strangle me
smother me
suffocate me
under false promises
broken pretenses

a lover's war
more than a quarrel
a battle to the blood
breaking down to the gravel
am i making love to the devil again?
simply because he
holds me, consoles me, relieves me
of all the problems
he brings into my life
over and over again.

Did you catch me staring?
Trying to figure out what your chiseled body looks like
Underneath those clothes
Your blue jeans and polo shirts turn me on.
Did you catch me staring?
I was merely trying to see your heart
Through your carefully constructed facade
Later, it became evident, however.
Did you catch me staring?
Oh, how embarrassing.
I hope these walls don't speak a word of it.
Of my unwavering love for you.
Did you catch me staring?
I promise,
I really did try so hard to look away
But that only drew me to you more.
Did you catch me staring?
You are the reason I cannot focus on anything else
*And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hello, old friend
I am in a haunted house
Banging on the ceiling
Breaking glass walls that suffocate me
The shards pierce me beautifully
An elegant ribbon of blood tangles around my body
Like a kitten, I watch as I unravel
Unable to escape as you watch me bleed out.

Different night, same dream again
I want to know if someone can deliver me
Bitter venom that can save my sanity
The same principle that if you **** on a jellyfish sting
It hurts less
Desperate times call for desperate poison and muck
Sinking.
Baby, could that be your kiss?

I wake up, and remember
They think I might have Stockholm Syndrome
For everyone that abused me, it seems
I have the utmost respect for
And I love them every day with all of my being.

The waves of my love will not run dry
Eleven years after being molested
I still draw your name on my tongue
Sing you rather than spit you
"Alan"
Sweet harmony
"Alan"
You have a girlfriend now
And she looks an awful lot like me
At least that's what I have discovered by stalking your Facebook page
Was I that good that you modeled her after me?
Do you even remember?

You visit me in my dreams
My own pillow jumps from my bed to smother my face
I leave purple sticky drool marks on my arm
A bruise for every time I am in that glass house
I've seen you take me captive
I've seen you hold me in every position imaginable
I've seen you have a baby girl
And her eyes look just like yours
All from a distance
But none of its real
This is no part of my molecular makeup
As my atoms do not collide with yours
I am a fish, swimming through air
I cannot breathe because I am being taught how to drown elegantly
Which begs the question:
Did it ever really happen at all?
Did I ever really happen at all?

Sincerely, me
The same one whose face may have traveled below your belt
Who you may have violated
I wish you had strangled me with that belt at that very moment

PS: I swear I won't be angry, darling
Just please tell me
What I need to know to sleep soundly again
After all,
You are the only one who remembers
Correctly.

Three years ago, I first came out about what you did to me
You twisted my reality into knots too tight for me to undo
Two months ago, I began to remember more
Like my life was pulling a string,
Drawing my memories out of me
Because repression can only prove effective for you so long
You see, repression can only hide things until they come up
Books, movies, media
You see, repression can only hide things until you experience a similar circumstance once more
When I said no and he kept prying
You see, repression can only hide things until it can't
Until I can't hold back everything in my being
Because I want to cut my tongue out of my own mouth
As my voice begins to fail
As I realize there are men in this world who will not listen to me
As I was so confident and outspoken at one time
And now my meekness is the only suitable way for me to find a husband
I am only eighteen, and yet my voice trails off at the end of sentences
You finished them for me long ago
But my teenage years were considered a grace period
Society now tells me as I enter adulthood
It is my duty to be prim and proper
I am only as worthy as I am pretty and sweet
Because ladies are suppose to talk with the gentleness of flowers
The goodness of a saint
And the purity of the church steeple.
I have already killed those flowers
Hoodwinked the saint
And burnt the church down!
I will raise my fist and scream "*******!" to the world because it tells me I cannot
You make have spoken for me before
But I am taking my voice back
In a world that has every intention of keeping me silent.

Maybe I'll just take a walk
A walk through every town in which I lived
A walk through every man I loved
A walk through every face I used to know.

Maybe I can do that instead of hurting
With an unlit cigarette between my lips
As I flick the lighter with clear intent
But my hands are shaking
And this makes it harder.

Maybe I can try to forget
A burn for every time you hurt me
A cut in every place you touched me
I'd like to cut you out of my mind
Or watch you burn in Hell
I bet there's a special place there for people like you.

I'm tired of crying
I'm sick of trying
I don't feel like believing today.

Maybe I'll just sit in bed
Drinking away the pain.
Maybe I'll just spend my days here
Suffering alone.

This is the poem I never wanted to write:
The blaming myself for things out of my control poem;
The feeling crushed by everyone's expectations poem;
The I never knew I could hate myself this much poem;
The facing my own mind is scarier than facing any demon poem;
The shameless nights I'm embarrassed to own up to in the morning poem;
The talking too fast and scaring people away poem;
The crying too frequently and wanting to waste away like a rotting flower poem;
The meaningless metaphors and stale similes poem;
The I can't see his face because it fills me with grief poem;
The I can't see his mother's face because it fills me with guilt poem;
The but I didn't do anything wrong poem;
The but emotionally I can't grasp the concept poem;
The then, hands all over me poem;
The now, hands holding a bottle of Jack poem;
The no, I'm not an alcoholic but I get tipsy to cope poem;
The I never get just tipsy anymore poem;
The lying to my parents poem;
The clinging to my parents poem;
The hating myself for every bit of it poem;
The now we're finally getting somewhere poem;
The maybe I should tell my therapist what's going on in my head poem;
The maybe I better keep it to myself poem;
The losing faith in everything poem;
The needing faith in something poem;
The needing faith in myself poem;
The wounded bird learning to fly again poem;
The maybe I can finally move on poem;
This is the poem I've always wanted to write.

I am up in arms about oppression
Why don't we see our own privilege?
Who are we to fail to acknowledge our gains from this world
That are not earned by us
But inherited?
Privilege is never having to think about it
It is sitting in a classroom and having college be an expectation
Not an ambition
It is equal pay for equal work
It is women getting *****
And boys getting shot
It is black children learning to be afraid of the police
Who are supposed to protect them
But instead
Oppress them.
I am up in arms about people getting offended
Because talking about these things is uncomfortable.
Educating people about *** is uncomfortable
But we do that to prevent things from happening in the future
The same goes for racism
Sexism
Privilege in general
If we do not know about it
There is nothing we can do to curb the problem.
I am up in arms about the failing systems
Education
Justice
Legal
That our future generations are being ****** into
Filtered in like cattle, they march
One by one
Into ignorant landfills
That feed them garbage
But there is too much to sift through
That they accept it as fact and move on.
I am not up in arms about Ferguson
Steubenville
Any other place where
Male
White
Upper class
Privilege is an issue
Because it is an issue everywhere.
I am up in arms about the precedent being set
For the generations to come.

Skinny people,
Please do not jump on the defensive
But if you have never experienced the following
This is your privilege.
You did not ask for it
Just as we did not ask for our scarlet letter
Our crown of thorns that is weight.
I am forty pounds overweight
According to my doctor.
According to society
I am ninety
Telling me that 110 pound models are the normal
Ridiculously
Teaching me to swim by water boarding me
And then wondering why it is not effective.
Laughing in my face when I become bulimic
Which cannot be blamed on our culture
But the way our culture is shaped to think
Fat people can't get eating disorders
Or if they do, more power to them.
Being told
"You are part of the obesity epidemic"
You are an epidemic
Aren't we so coy to use the word 'epidemic'
For anything we want to get rid of?
Being charged more to sit on an airplane
Because your extra baggage will offend the other passengers
Because your extra baggage is an economical discretion
Like the economy could get any more ridiculous as it is?
Eating a salad and being the brunt of their jokes
Eating a burger and receiving disapproving looks
From mothers and their children
Who are being conditioned systematically to criticize others
Simply based on their outward appearance.
Being a ****** fetish on **** websites
Like my body type is a piece of raw meat
Fit for the slaughter
But it needs to have the fat trimmed off first.
Having people ask your partner what it is like to make love to you
While you are standing in the room
As if you are invisible?
Funny how the additional weight
Acts as a cape
That seems to cover you when people do not want you to exist.
Being told if you ever love your body
That you are lazy, slobbish, and disgusting
Well guess what, *******?
I LOVE this body
And all the things it does for me
How it moves
How it operates
How it is able to function
And just as frequently as people try to take bits of life from me
I breathe them back in
And they invigorate my being
My pores tingle with acceptance
So I rip the sheet off
Every inch of my body is visible
Can you see who I am now?
I finally am someone
Loved, accepted and beautiful.
I am more than just heavy.

Sometimes I forget that I want to get better
It's harder to scream when you don't remember what happened to you
When your thoughts are only pictures
Not the chair, the couch, the carpet, the walls
It's everywhere, even with the best intentions

Like ****** Assault Awareness Month posters plastered all over my college
Even though we read epic poems by Derek Walcott
The man convicted of sexually harassing multiple women
And still teaches at Harvard
But my professor didn't feel it was pertinent information
Until my friend asked about it in class
Both he and Google claim it was a smear campaign
Even though he most likely touched every woman who testified.
They say we burn our own houses down
But we're left behind in the rubble

Senior year of high school
I get into an argument with my lunch table
They tell me how some women like to accuse high profile people of ****
When they are on top
See: Bill Cosby
My face is hot by this point in the conversation
I try to spit words out, but they sizzle up in midair
My friend asks
"If this happened, why are they all coming forward now?"
They say we burn our own houses down
But we're left behind in the rubble

A year earlier
When a boy with rogue hands and boiling breath
Caused my body and my words to freeze into my skin
I tried to scrub the dirt from myself
More times than I care to remember
I tell a friend
He tells me I should have reported it
No proof, next in line please
I tell another friend
She says I probably just regret it
I will get over it soon enough
They say we burn our own houses down
But we're left behind in the rubble

This world has built the home of my attacker up around me
I know that recovery is the price I pay for living in this body
When seeing his face is no longer wanting to **** myself
When purging will not control the places my shriveled up corpse was dragged to
But how can I want to get better
When I see how we are blamed for our own imprisonment?
When songs about **** are in every commercial
Every grocery store aisle
Every radio station that comes on repeat?

Recovery is the price I pay for living in this body
But sometimes it would be easier
To stop paying rent.

They never put trigger warnings on mushroom fields
On big houses in the country
With lots of rooms that can swallow you whole
They will claim you as food to feed the mouths of their lions
Who will name you victim
Name you child
I, I was a child
When you painted your name across my body in blood
And I said no
I said no
But I did what you asked of me
Always so eager to please
Good girl
Good dog
Fetch it.
We socialize little girls to submit
Submit
Submit
And you're the polite child
Until your identity is wrapped up in staying silent
Because the most interesting part about you
Cannot be spoken out loud
The most interesting part about you
Is the game you play with another person
Is flying out of your body when he grooms you
Flying is a super power, baby
You have magic in your fingertips
That's why he mistakes you for someone older
Eleven years later, I find myself crying in a closet
You branded me with victim
Yet I have survivor tattooed on my bare skin
Every bit of my human says
Child and adult alike shout
"I should be over this"
Two parts, constantly in conflict
Agree that I should forget an entire part of my life
That shattered me before I had the tools I needed to reassemble the pieces
Surviving means there will be months where I am fine
And then trigger warning I smell the stale stench of mushrooms
Or trigger warning get lost in the rooms of my labyrinth mind
And I am right back in that bed again
Why do I always need something to hold onto?
My father says I make up reasons to be depressed
But honestly, I make trophies out of reasons to recover
Elevated high on the mantle
Every day I see a new one
And I'm not saying everyone can reclaim this easily
Because I thinks that's a lie we tell people like me
Without understanding how much there is below the surface
But I know I had to take this back in order to grow and bloom
And I remember:
Pretty, no, pretty strong girl
No, pretty strong woman
You are surviving this nightmare
You are surviving this
You are surviving.

Last night i almost lost you
and i remembered everything.
The songs you taught me to sing
every joke we annoyed mom with
how you knew everyone we ran into on the street.
I realized
that i cannot imagine what it will be like
if you miss
my high school graduation
my first day of college
my wedding day...
and i know that you might not make it
long enough to experience
all of those things.
but i can simply not imagine my life
without you here.

I never wanted you around
With your ashy olive-colored skin
Or the way your hair stuck to your forehead
With particles of sweat that bound it to your face
Or your muddy brown eyes
That hunted me down as though I was prey
And you were a dog on the prowl.

I never wanted you to say
That all of this was "just a game"
I was only seven years old and my childhood disappeared before my eyes
Who are you to steal that untouched innocence from my slim finger tips
Like sand, it slipped through my hands

I never wanted to believe
That I was just some textbook ****** assault victim
With a case of PTSD and low self esteem
That could literally **** anybody
It almost killed me
I became a statistic at best

I never wanted to talk about it
It took every ounce of strength that I could muster up in my small frame even though I was slightly overweight
At fourteen, seven and a half years later
I blurted out every detail of every heinous thing you had done to me
They said it would be empowering to talk about it
But it was horrible and dehumanizing at the time.

I never wanted to blame myself
Because I had the perfect situation after I spoke out
Everyone believed me, which is heaven compared to a lot of people I know
Who talked about this awful and unspeakable act and were ridiculed and spat at
By people they were supposed to be able to trust.
It is like facing abuse twice

I never wanted to admit
That you contributed to my bulimia and mental illness and promiscuity
That had you not hurt me
Maybe I could have been okay.
That I was so weak and unbalanced because of you
So I turned to everything else.

Now, many other girls experience the same torture daily
Sometimes this results in an unwanted love child
And I tend to find the word "love child" a bit ironic
Because this is the ultimate act of hate.

How can Rick ******* then turn around and tell us
That **** victims should make the best of a bad situation?
How can Cee Lo then tweet that
**** is not **** if the victim is unconscious?
How can so many bigoted men and republicans
Use alcohol to excuse assaulters and condemn survivors?

Why do we continue to tolerate this
And all of the ******* laws that still exist in 31 states
That allow a ****** to still claim custody of their children?

I have a secret for you
The child, the mother, the wife, the son, the daughter, the sister
Every victim, every survivor, everywhere
Regardless of whether they were drunk, sober
Man, woman, gay, straight, trans, or bisexual
Black, white, yellow or blue
*They never wanted to, either.

When you tell someone with an eating disorder that they are fat,
We will not hear you right away.
We are far too busy warding off our own voices
Cupping our ears to block out the screams
Telling us vile things, disgusting things
About how we look, how we are.

When you tell someone with an eating disorder that they are fat,
You make a choice to further advance this gnawing disease
Because days later, what you said begins to sink in.
It tears our flesh apart with knives
Leaving the splinters of bones exposed
Leaving the bloodstains on the carpet
Leaving us empty, messy.

When you tell someone with an eating disorder that they are fat,
Your words are not harmless.
They permeate my pores
Submerge my body in deep pools of sweat
I no longer have control over my thoughts
Your words are triggers
They are a loaded gun pointed at my temple
And as the bullet penetrates the surface of my skin
I give in, solemnly throwing my hands in the air.

When you tell someone recovering from an eating disorder that they are fat,
You allow the illness to take control.
It still ebbs and flows in waves
Pulling us out and tempting our unconscious desires
Then leaving us gasping.
This phrase gives immense power to the tide
And these words allow it to drown us.

When you tell someone recovering from an eating disorder that they are fat,
That is not the adjective we hear
We hear "worthless," "ugly," "horrible," "better off dead"
Because "fat" is still equated with those things in our minds.
The sickness is still a little monster who hides in the crevices of our brains
She is always there and the more your environment and the people in it feed her
The more aggressive she becomes.

When you tell someone who has recovered from an eating disorder that they are fat,
Do not believe the lie that we are okay with it.
I still have triggers that send me spinning out of control
And steadying myself is incredibly painful.
It is an acquired skill
But just because I have it in my toolbox of coping mechanisms
Does not mean it is easily accessible.

When you tell someone who has recovered from an eating disorder that they are fat,
Their body still feels its effects
Like an electric fence
Sending fields of shocks to each and every corner of my being.
Sadly, I have scars all over my body
I have etched that word on my skin
And etched the names of the people who said it
In my bones.
The walls of my body know who you are.

When you tell someone who has recovered from an eating disorder that they are fat,
We beg you to
Please, be careful with your words
They are not harmless
They are not inane.
We have overcome a vice
An addiction
A disease.
Please try to be proud of us
Rather than rip our progress
Right out of our hands.

I wanted to write a poem about you
But I forgot how to say your name.
You see, it is slashed into my skin
By your razor sharp claws
But it hides itself inside the **** in my tongue
Twisting itself into knots
I fear the sound of your name out loud
Because someone might hear it
It might hurt someone who knows you
It might hurt my friend who dates you
She will claim that she loves the way your name billows out of her mouth
Smoke from a freshly rolled cigarette
Until she discovers it is laced with poison
Each time she takes a drag
It chokes me
I stand downwind, still
Eager to take you into my body
That's why I still feel your kiss sometimes
From before your hands carved a crucifix into my wooden flesh
My body became a dead tree
It loves lurking in dense corners
Searching for sunlight
I can't feel anyone's touch
Without believing I will be harmed, now
But I keep searching for love in dark places
I keep reaching for hands that don't look like yours
My tongue keeps saying the names of other people
But it cannot vocalize the phonetics behind each letter
Four letters
One syllable
Zach.
I said it, and it feels
Like taking back my own body
I write it, and it looks
Like I could call you Hell
Call you evil
Call you vicious
Sometimes I wish you were any of those things
Then maybe people would believe me
In reality,
You're just someone else
With a case of whipping tongue.

Fall to the floor and scream
Seems to be some form
Of my coping mechanism.
It happens when
People die
I am assaulted
I am discovered
For what I truly am
A liar and a fraud
I don't cry anymore
I just shout at the top of my lungs
No longer do I care about
Who hears me
My mind and my trembling body yell
"This cannot be happening!"
This has to be a mirage
It's too unbelievable
To be real (my) life.

I am the finger in your throat.
I want to be inside you.
I will keep you cute
The worst part is you know it.

You sick child.
You thought you could control me,
Put me in a box and keep me in the closet.
But now I control you.

Shaking, biting, convulsing, crying.
I make you do these things.
I own your body.
You poor thing, they say.
But I find no sympathy.

I have no emotion.
I make you impulsive and I laugh in your face.
I am only comparable to a sociopath.

You think that I'm gone now?
Oh darling, I am just below the surface
Waiting for you to slip up
Or for something disconcerting to happen to you.
Then I will come back full force.
And you will welcome me with open arms.

You will throw up your food before you digest,
All because you need "control"
You need to be "thin".
But you will never be good enough for me to go away.

I am the voice in your head saying,
"The scale is calling your name."
You try to block me out, but I am always there.

I am screaming in your ear
And when you scream back,
You will fall twice as hard
And there will be no one there to catch you.

Try to control me as you will,
Even with therapy,
I do not leave you.
I am a parasite, and you are my host.

I am **the Devil's agent.

Your crooked smile betrayed me
Your cracked lips lied to me
Your greasy hands violated me
But who am I to complain?

You stole the ground from beneath my feet
You stole the sanity from the mechanism of my mind
You stole my control right out of my hands
But who am I to complain?

I wish this wasn't real
I wish this wasn't true
I wish this would all just go away
But who am I to complain?

Now, I am taking what is rightfully mine
Now, I am living, rather than merely being alive
Now, I am my own hero
Now, I am shouting louder than ever
Because you tried to keep me quiet.

I am finally granting myself
The right to complain
Because this is unacceptable
And yet
Society makes it seem okay.

****** assault is never normal
Therefore
I will never stop complaining
Until it is obsolete.

I've been told
There is more than enough of me
But will I ever be enough?

Worth is not measured by body mass
In fact,
It seems nearly the opposite.
Worth is measured by how much
You are willing to lose yourself
To conform with society.

You once were a mitten
When you emerged from your mother's womb
Perfectly and intricately woven
With no other quite like you.

You loosely resembled our culture's standards
Based on the actions of your superiors.

As you evolved into a young person
Your peers seem to sneer
So you change your clothes
Change your hair
Maybe then they'll like you
Maybe then you'll be okay

You become a latex glove
Each one the same
Skin tight and molded to fit
Society's overbearing fingers.

You lost yourself
As the words
"Too fat"
"Too ugly"
And
"Worthless"
Penetrated your impressionable mind

And so now
It would seem
That you are perfect for
Our army of robots
One by one
Marching to the media's drum
Same song over and over again

So make the choice
Tell yourself that whether
Your mental and physical densities
Happen to be subpar
Or if they are more than enough
That you are enough
For you.

Dear you,
I miss you.
The name of a spice that smells so sweetly in the spring
Your name was so fitting.

Dear you,
How are you?
I live in my own pain that smells like a sewage plant
You have nothing do with it
You were always kind.

Dear you,
How dare you be so kind?
How dare you believe me
The person who accused your son of being a child molester?
Although, I never spoke poison
Everything I said was true
Why did you believe me?

Dear you,
I had trouble believing myself.
Knowing this happened
I detached so eloquently from the event
For seven years
I formed an alter ego
In which I could live comfortably

Dear you,
Are you comfortable?
I really do hope I didn't tear your family apart
As I seem to be so privy at
Why, just look at mine.
I played a heavy hand in the way
It's pretty ****** up

Dear you,
You are the only person who didn't treat me like a **** up
When you had every reason to
You never blamed me
You apologized for him
So why am I still holding onto this guilt?
Why am I so ashamed to see you?
Why am I so fearful?
Because, even though you never blamed me
I have always blamed myself.

All of a sudden
My life came crashing down
All of a sudden
I was broken on the ground
All of a sudden
You were gone before my eyes
All of a sudden
I broke down my walls and cried
All of a sudden
My happiness was no longer there
All of a sudden
This dream became a nightmare

When I was eight I used to ask my mom
Why daddy was so mean to me
She would tell me to talk to him about it.
I remember throwing up
Like the bones of my guilt were piercing my throat
Like I had taken one too many cookies from the forbidden jar
Like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to
Something bad.
The one time I did talk to him
I pulled the strings of my heart's corset loose
And let him see the emptiness left there
He yelled at me again, making me cry.
I always ask myself if I would rather have divorced parents
Or a parent who guts me like a dead fish daily
Even after many apologies
I lay naked and bruised
Upon the lies I tell myself to stay sane.
I tell myself he doesn't know the impact of his words
Swift blow to the belly
Swift blow to the mind.
I tell myself he will get better when I come home from school
Until he finds out I am sharing skin to a girl
Until he finds out where my skin has been.
I tell myself none of it matters
But I feel guilty when he brings up my weight
But I feel guilty when I take my medication behind his back.
I feel like a shadow of his sins
And a ghost of his future
Lurking in the shadows
As he tells me the same things everyday
And I wilt silently in his suffocating grasp
Forever lonely,
Forever alone.
When I was eighteen, my dad told me he was sorry
For all the years he hung my by the noose of comments about my appearance.
I thought he meant it and I forgave him
I should have known better than to trust the butcher.

Scared.
If you rearrange the letters
You get
Sacred.*
Maybe fear is supposed to be something serene
Perhaps it is pure
So why am I so scared of sacred things?
A church
A bed
A school
All are supposed to be set apart
All are supposed to be safe
But I learned unspeakable things
In the back rooms of these places
That no one wants to discuss.
I am scared of sacred things
For all of these have been defiled for me
As a man has taken it upon himself
To break my hands and
To play God
To use me as his ****** Mary
I wish I understood virginity
As my innocence was stolen from me at seven years old
I am scared of sacred things
I bled from the inside out
I was no longer white washed
Blood and bile encased my soul
And a black hole swallowed it whole.
I am scared of sacred things
He left me there and knew that should I blame him
My religion would beg of me to forgive his sins
So I never did
Instead I blamed myself.
I only existed under heavy sheets
Only let myself feel in dark places.
I am scared of sacred things
White dresses
Fairy tale weddings
Boys who promise to love you
Men who lie about love
Monsters who don't know what love is
In the first place.

I give off
Fake smiles
Broken laughter
An agile body
That wants nothing more than to give up
Shallow friendships
All the while I'm hoping
That I will someday believe it too.

Look closer
Dark circles and bags
Droop around my lifeless eyes
The glint that once glimmered
Has been stolen from them again.

Even deeper
And you will see scars
All my over feeble frame.
Read a little more carefully
And a story begins to unfold.
I wish I could read it to you
But fear has taken over.

What you don't see*
The psychological and physiological damage
That jamming a finger down my throat repeatedly
Has caused.
The insomnia that keeps me restless
And the nightmares that hold me captive
When I do steal a chance to sleep.
The flashbacks who's mercy I am at
They can pop up anywhere, any time, any day
Thanks for nothing, PTSD.
The anxiety that terrorizes my mind
As I fail over and over again
To prioritize.
The loneliness that breaks my bones
And the depression that keeps me unmotivated.
All the questions, specifically:
Why am I such a failure?*

So now do you see
Why I am falling to pieces?

Do you see them?
The puzzle pieces of my life
Scattered on the ground
Sharp enough to break the shallow skin
Of a heart destroyed.

Why am I so broken?
The worst part is feeling helpless
Like matter what I do
Destruction seems to follow.

Am I out of my mind?
My old friends have all dissipated
Like fog in the evening.

Did they forget me?
My mind and body are faltering.

Is it too late to pretend this isn't real?

Childhood**
What was it?
At first glance
It may be an innocent depiction
Of playing in the streets
Until way past dusk

Running anywhere and everywhere
Scraped knees
Bicycle races
Talent shows
Swimming pools

Is that my childhood?
Perhaps
But that is not what I remember.

I recall
Being violated
Humiliated
Shamed into eating less than the other kids
Or eating nothing at all.

Being told I'm fat
Being bullied at school and at home
Holding onto secrets
That literally made me sick
With headaches and stomaches.
I was predisposed to extreme stress
And all of it's physical symptoms.

All of that innocence
Was taken from my ***** little fingers
I was forced to take accountability
For things that were done to me

I learned about things
That no child should know
And yet
They wonder why I blame myself?
I guess these are just the perks
Of growing up.

My heart is
an empty compilation
of veins and arteries.
It is black and cold
and yearns to be healed
but by whom?
I'll tell you the answer
to that secret and unkempt
hole within my chest:
I need you
*to fix me up

If Narcissus had a daughter
She wouldn't look anything like his reflection
So he would fall out of love with her.
If her body was not that of the flower which he became
Thin, wispy, conventional
He would spit her out of his venomous mouth
She would become a drop in a bucket
Forget how to love herself
And expect someone to do it better
She will look into the eyes of her lover
See her father and approve
Because she does not know how to love differently
He will not teach her to accept herself
But rather push her into the pond
So he can be above her
Watch carefully, darling
Trauma is the only thing you ever knew
Why would you expect anything else?
When I watched my father become a flower
Wilted over the water
I wondered if he had always been that way
I wanted to rip the eggshells out of my imperfect feet
As I crushed them and cut myself
Instead of avoiding them altogether
For far too long
They have become a part of me
So damaged and frail
No wonder I hold them close to my chest.
My heart is no longer an eggshell
It is a diamond
Not easily cracked again
But I still love the poison of your lips
The way your hand causes tremors through my skin
As I break the surface of the water
Earthquake, dear
You give me earthquakes
After all,
If all I know is trauma
How could I expect anything else?

To the cigarette I left behind
I wish you were lit
Want you to burn that moment out of my memory
Leave holes in the carpet of my body
Like the holes in my story:
Why didn't you report it?
You did lead him on...
Well, what were you wearing?
Trusty nicotine wand
Could my cotton mouth not block his tongue from my throat?
You came to my rescue too little too late
Later, I pressed my finger to thumb
Squeezing you in between
I kissed your filter
And then another and another and another
Until I found myself kissing the pavement
Face down, halfway to forgetting
Forgetting the feeling of his body pressed against mine
The way I burnt up in his sweaty palms
My body bag sizzled around me
Incinerated while still barely alive.
Oh, dear cancer stick
I have felt your tragedy
As my body shriveled up beneath me
At the hands of another.

You ignite me
Like my cigarette **** against the velvet midnight sky
The northern lights in the summer
The sunset in Arizona
In the middle of November.

You excite me.
Like a good ****
A roller coaster ride
My stomach is doing cartwheels
Broken glass against my hand
I fall in love all over again.

You make me drunk.
You are my shot of tequila
You are my cup of coffee
But with you
I need one more sip of whiskey
Or ten.

You make my body feel everything.
My feet feel like bubbles are encasing them
Fireworks light up my gut
My skin is drenched in a sheer screen of sweat
Electric currents shoot through my veins
They are carried from your lips as they connect with my neck
My bones shatter in the best way possible
And it reminds me that I'm still breathing.

You are the only thing
That makes me feel alive.

The words on my wrist stopped making sense
I wrote them on with permanent ink
Branded to my skin forever
My soul pretends to understand them
Because at one time, they were fresh
Now scars read like faded tattoos
Like a book full of missing pages
I guess I just never cut deep enough to make a lasting impression.
That chapter of my life does have holes and gaps
It is lost between the angles of verbs
And the misuse of nouns.
My raw red flesh used to tell a story
Now that tale is slowly washing away
But parts of it will remain forever.
Little details
The precise words my father used to describe me
Will someday become a distant memory
But the bigger picture
****** assault that caused cigarette burns and razor blades
To make a home in my skin
Will always read exactly.
While parts of the ink may bleed off the page
My story, my legacy
Will be shown through me.

In 2002
Christina Aguilera released a single called
"Beautiful."
Do you remember how revolutionary those words
"I am beautiful
No matter what they say
And words can't bring me dow-own"
Seemed to be?
Well, it still seems visionary
As to many
I am only as beautiful
As a man says I am.
Only reduced to pretty face
Only reduced to **** body
Only reduced to nothing.
My mouth
Do they call that beautiful?
Only if the paint spilling from it
Comes in the shades "sorry" and "yes"
Because rewind to the time I was sixteen
And two men at my job deemed it fit
To tell me explicitly what they would do to my body
In front of a room full of customers.
So I told them exactly what my fist would do to their face
And penalized for it.
They said I was rude
They said that while it was vile
It was not my place to fight back.
Well, I am fighting back right now!
To not be reduced to pretty face
To **** body
To nothing.
My mouth
My mind
My heart
Is beautiful
No matter what they say
Even if they tell me to say nothing
At all.

I dream of dead friends living.
The craziness of your life fills the room
And chokes me like a cigarette.

I miss you every day
Last night I dreamt you were still here
That you had not left this earth
Before your time has come.

I catch myself talking to God sometimes
I'll ask how you are doing
And if you're smile is lighting up heaven
Like it did this Earth.
Mind you, this is the only time I pray.

I dream of past circumstances.
The abuse that I was subject to in my childhood
Is as real as it gets in my dreams.

I dream of you hurting someone else,
Usually it happens to be my sister.
You finish with me, and then you take her in your car.

Although I am unaware if it happened,
It could have.
I dream out of guilt and fear.

I think they call those nightmares.

Truth be told
I want to cut my memory out of your veins
Watch you bleed me into a puddle on the floor
I hope you enjoy watching what you've done to me

Truth be told
Please don't speak my name again
It smells like rancid meat dripping out out of your saliva
You are not the first who has taken advantage
But I pray you will be the last

Truth be told
I don't really hate you
I just said that over the phone
Because I hated that I couldn't keep your faith in me
When your body came crashing into me like a tidal wave
Then, I had your trust
Then, I had your attention
Then, I had you

Truth be told
I don't miss you anymore
But I don't want you to remember me as I was
Or as I am
I know I will be someone of great esteem one day
And you?
You'll be here with your **** in one hand
And a pack of cigarettes in the other
Wishing I had been cut from your body
Before you let me inside.

My hands turn into fists as I clench them open and closed.  They are not longer hands, as they pulse like my racing heart and are nearly as nervous.  As I walk to the bathroom, as I have so many times before with a specific detrimental purpose in mind, I am overcome with anxiety and fear because I want to engage in older behaviors.  I want to stick a finger down my throat as if it is a snake that wants to swiftly swoop in and grab my unguarded uvula.  I want to convulse as I used to before the ***** would flood my mouth and body like a storm, shaking me violently from the wind and the rain.  I want to experience that far too familiar paradox of guilty grief and soothing relief after purging because it gives me a false sense of control.  But wanting is selfish.  My desire for pain must be curbed by some miracle, some ambiguity that is out of my control.  Plenty of people know about this monstrous eating disorder that has overtaken my body at various periods of time for nearly a decade.  Sure, I am clean and have been cured of all harmful organisms with which old habits had riddled my body, but they leave their dirt and dead skin behind.  And the remains of their bodies can still strangle anyone who is not careful. They try to pile up all over the thoughts that give me hope and life and allow me to breathe, and sometimes they nearly win.  When I can see nothing but these shells of things that once were alive and well inside of me, I must squeeze them out of my body.  I ball fists once again as my anxiety heightens and want to drain any life they may have left in the cells of their being.  I realize they are not completely dead, just dormant; waiting for the next host to come along and slither their way into these coats.  Again, I squeeze.  Draining the life from these beasts is the only way to avoid relapse and relapse is not in the question, as that would mean abandoning everything I have ever worked for and loved so dearly is gone.  It would mean I was gone.  I continue to press on this invisible stress ball.  As I go to the bathroom to do things any normal, fully functioning human being needs to do, I do this over and over again.  Tears stream down my face because the skins are all I can see.  They blot out the sunlight of hope but I do not give up.  I simply close my eyes because there is darkness there too, but it is the darkness that I can control.  I walk out into the world, slightly defeated, but also overjoyed that I was winning this vindictive war.  When an addiction takes over your life, there is no weapon except for hope that can compensate for the loss in such a battle.  Therefore, hope is a flower, and it thrives in me, every time I choose to make those nonviolent fists.

My body shakes
Bones break
People are dying
But nobody's crying
I just want to know
Why?
Muscles are ripped off my bones
I have never felt more alone
Migraines make a home in my head
Can't I just go back to bed?
It is the strangest feeling
When you no longer hope for healing
But to tear off your skin
Your mentality is wearing thin
Where do I go now, sweet tragedy?
This planet has no place for me.
However, I do not hope for death
Only a space in which to catch my breath.
Is there any magic wand that can twirl
Me down the path into a different world?

The term, people use it as a synonym for
Stupid
A failure
Well, maybe you shouldn't be so judgmental.

High school *****,
We all know that.
But when they make your life a living hell
And your best friend is expecting
What are you supposed to do?

It's not only students
But teachers who bully you.
Just because your friend got pregnant
Apparently you are all ***** now.

You couldn't handle it
Couldn't take it
It was doing serious damage to your psyche.
So Mom signs you out at sixteen
Contingent on the fact
That you get your GED.
Sounds fair to me.

But no, apparently because you're a drop out
And because you smoke
That makes your irresponsible
According to my parents
And my holier-than-thou high school "friends"
Who treat me like dirt

You are one of the most accepting people I know
You are beautiful, and have not had an easy life
You are more than what they tell you
You are more than a high school drop out.

Straighten your back, girl
Stand up, molded into their prodding expectations
Crack neck
Crick, crick
Prison face
Prison cell:

Pick apart the pieces of your face
Like glass, ready to shatter
Tears stain it like windows
Peering into my own loneliness;

And so, the reaping begins.

Eyebrows, too thick
Hair, too thin
Scars, too many
Must cover
Color, not enough
Must fake

Brutal fat jokes are the dagger in my spine
Painting me red and black and blue:

"Fat girl's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's momma's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's whole family's so fat
I wonder where she gets it's from."

My genes were always one size too large
And everybody could tell
No matter how much I tried to make myself up
My family history was engraved in my love handles;

Even the biting words of fifth graders could serve as a poignant reminder
That no matter how much you can do to curb your appetite
You can't curb where you come from.

I always wonder why it feels
Like looking through my own eyes
At someone else's life.

Although,
That life fails to address
How much fatter her ******* mouth is
It could swallow the sea if her family whole
We all want to be a mouth
Or become absorbed by one:

And though some may say
It'll turn her up dead
She says it makes her
Dead ****.

Most people hear about it on the news and they think "what a shame, how sad." They think it is some creepy dark stranger on the street of a major city who captures a young girl whose parents are too naive or busy or negligent to walk her home from school. That is when she is eight. When the girl is 25 and stumbling out of a bar right into the arms of some awful man who is out to prey on her trembling hands and glassy eyes then suddenly, the same breed of creep who attacked the little girl is no creep at all but, in fact, just an ordinary man. It is her fault, after all, what did she expect after consuming enough alcohol to drown a small child or wearing a skirt that clearly gives him permission to force himself onto her unprotected and unassuming body as she lay there lifeless, either passed out or staring up at him helplessly from below? Well, what they don't tell you about ****** assault is that usually it is not a strange character at a club or on a street corner but someone who is in your life, has gained your trust and has taken it and pitched it out an open window the second he lures you into his dark, ruthless eyes. They brush it under the rug of society and leave out the details that it does not usually take place in an abandoned warehouse or on concrete but rather in a bedroom or a hallway in your workplace or school that you have walked through comfortably with him so many times before and now you can barely approach the scene of the crime without having the stench climb up your nostrils and paralyze your body until the feeling nearly sends you to the floor. They fail to admit that the victim -- who is not truly a victim at all because society smacks that label right onto her forehead, implying that the survivor is weak and the attacker won whatever sick game he was playing-- frequently wishes that she had not survived so she would not have to grapple with the pain of living with this secret and seeing his face every day, knowing that should she say a word he has an arsenal of evidence against her and she has none to back her story. They don't know that she knows in the back if her mind that she does not deserve what he did to her but in her eyes, she froze and let him use and abuse her, so how could she not owe it to this man who extracted every bit of joy from her soul and gutted every bit of life from her being? He asked me why I am so sad after he apologized to me, but did he forget the harassing texts he sent me when I would not sleep with him or the way I froze when he made me do other things?  No.  And no, the public does not hear that side of the story that so desperately needs to explode and immerse every area of society that permits **** culture rather than attempts to bring it to a screaming halt. How can society condemn assault victims and coddle assaulters after a guilty verdict is reached? As misogyny prevails, I am asked why I let this happen, told to just get over it, and questioned as to why I am so pessimistic. I am not an optimist, nor a pessimist: I am dead inside after being murdered in a culture that insists on calling it suicide.