shoulders of fire:
  her wings rise above her,
  bright red, setting her ablaze
  and yet stinging from the cool breeze.

her path is laid out in dashed and dotted lines:
  connecting constellations,
  connecting scars and moles and freckles,
  connecting each hole she'll have to leap across
  in order to make it to the next day.

progress measured in the lack of reactions
and the abundance of responses:
  her voice stays calm,
  hands are held steady
  while the mind searches only for positive words.

one step forward, but 3 steps back:
  one for mom, who doesn't trust her choices,
  another for the neighbor, who reminds her
  that she'd like to empty her insides
  to be thin, pretty, perfect,
  the last for the memories that she can't defeat-
  memories of his eyes and his mouth and his grip
  on her neck.  
of the memory of his inability to take no as an answer.

she is becoming a piece of summer:
  skin scorched brown,
  eyes clear and bright,
  arms and legs strong.

she is taking steps forward,
  a few backward as well,
but her fire is still alive
  and so is she.

so is she.

at my wedding, i want a big field, full of paper lanterns.
i want there to be colorful trays of fruit, and i won't just have plain cake-
  no,
i want cheesecake and carrot cake and banana bread and pumpkin bread.

i will get married at the very end of summer,
  when the sun sets a little earlier,
  and the heat is still almost too much to bear.
i want my wedding to be beautiful.

and the tables will be set with intricately designed napkins
and the table numbers will be painted
  onto lanterns swinging above the tables.

my wedding will be a celebration of my life finally beginning,
  being full of color
  and life
  and happiness.

I thought that tearing myself out of the cycle that defined us was what I needed-
  that it would help me,
  that it would make me feel less anxious and less doubting.

Now I'm in a whole new cycle,
and it's a path of waiting, in a different sense of the word.
I’m not waiting for you,
  or for a call, or a message.
I’m waiting for me to become strong enough
  to take control of my mind,
  to take control of my dreams and nightmares.

It’s a cycle with highs of
  mental sunshine, energy to run for miles, sore and smiley cheeks
And lows of
  curling up breathless on the carpet, twirling razors between fingers, anxiety enough to shove me from the bridge.

earrings were never put in this morning,
her necklace is sitting, tangled on a pile of receipts.
her shoulder blades are swollen
and her head is dragging her into bed much too early
  for a friday night.
pain and soreness and sweat have been the perfect release,
but now the body is breaking down,
the body is shutting down for the time being.
and yet she has to force herself
  to keep going.

it's hard
because
i'm still so loyal to the part of me
  that wants to die
  and wants to destroy what i have.

it's hard
because
sometimes i wish that i
  could still be that person.

it's hard
because
i'm still so possessive of
  the darkness i'm trying to rid myself of
  the girl whose shoulder i used to cry on at night
  the boy who doesn't want to look me in the eye
  the razors i hide in my dresser
  the ways in which i hurt myself
  the bags under my eyes that remind me
  of how i want to be sick.

it's hard
because
i'm working to change the way
  i look at life
  and how my thought processes work.

it's hard
because
this fight looks like it'll last
  for the rest of my life,
  and i suppose i'm supposed to say
  that'll be a long time.

it's hard
because
i don't actually know what i want
  and that makes everything
  much more confusing
  than it needs to be.

it's hard
because
it's life.