It was exactly a year ago today when the quantum theory became clear
You and I, eons away, yet still interconnected by something
Something inexplicably powerful it felt as if we were born from the same star
It was tonight when I started to fall asleep on skype while you edited your music
Crackling on synthetic piano voices singing melancholy dreams
But it was now when you spoke words of love
The only time I felt true, pure euphoria
And if I thought back then, if I really believed you
Maybe things would be different

Your voice slowly dissipated from my memory, as did your face
Nothing more than a stranger passing by with a red string attached to our fingers
Empty promises long forgotten
Or cared for, if you rather

I know you told me to wait
But for what am I waiting?
For what am I pondering during sleepless nights
How to forgive the abrupt abandonment?
Back a year ago tonight
If I would have believed you when you said you loved me
Maybe moving back home wouldn’t feel like isolation, rather a new beginning

But for now, if by chance
We execute a correspondence on the streets of Amsterdam
Memories will seem as murky as the weather
Cold, harsh
Maybe even unrecognizable

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

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Those bells of the sirens! A lullaby, distant
ringing so deep within my heart, quelling the valves
and commanding me outside! Further!
Into the warm earth.

Off he climbs
Into that thick outside! The air resistant against his legs
that hushes my ears, soft hands that soft my ears
down, down, tiptoes on the ground,
gliding in waves...

step number one: read the book wintergirls.
tuck away every detail like you're cramming for a test.
dog-ear the pages and carry it with you like a travel guide.
decide that with your fingers and toes always icy cold for as long as you can remember,
you were destined to be a wintergirl.
reread it periodically, for inspirational purposes.

step two: download the myfitnesspal app.
use it to track every calorie you put into your body.
memorize that an oreo has seventy calories, an apple has one hundred, a cup of hot chocolate has eighty,
a bagel has two hundred seventy (a number that terrifies you),
and on and on and on.
let numbers float behind your eyes just before you go to bed,
and let them stay there as you throw off the covers to do guilty pushups and situps in your room
for twenty minutes (burning one hundred and twenty calories).
ignore the warnings shouted at you in red text
when you eat less than twelve hundred calories per day.
look at the projections it gives you for five weeks from now
with weights that seem both too small and too large at the same time.
when your net for the day hits the negatives after weeks of trying,
feel the slightest pang of satisfaction.

step three: find your "thinspiration".
make a tumblr just to look at pictures of jutting-out spines and thigh gaps and ribs.
hold your phone up next to your reflection in the mirror
and pick out everywhere your body differs from hers.
when the girls on the fitness blogs start looking too heavy for your goal,
find the eating-disorder blogs.
obsess over their bodies almost as much as you obsess over yours,
but not quite as much.

step four: begin losing weight.
imagine yourself floating away, feather-light.
imagine yourself becoming skin and bones.
imagine this as you drag your heavy body from class to class,
as your muscles waste from malnutrition.
imagine this as you have to clean your hairbrush out
three times while you work tangles from your hair.
imagine this as you snap at anyone and everyone,
as you spend hours locked in your room.

step five: become a poet and write about yourself.
romanticize your own demons, just by calling them demons.
use as many metaphors as you can,
to avoid the harsh language of the truth.
and especially avoid writing about the crippling guilt
that hits you when you eat too much,
you're fat you're worthless you'll never be anything,
and hits you when you don't eat enough,
what's wrong with you how did you let it get to this point
voices in your head never abating.
avoid writing about your lack of motivation and constant exhaustion and always,
always, use words that imply mystery.
describe your mind as foggy, call your body diminishing.
never say it how it is, because you could convince yourself to quit.
never say that it's torture and you're in pain
and you just wish you were eight again, never considering this path.
never say that you need help but you don't want help.

if you have the urge to say these things,
say only that this disorder is not one you would willingly give up,
because you finally have something to control.
because it is the truth,
but it is also the romanticized truth.

I know you don’t want me to go,
I’m afraid too you know,
It feels like I am leaving you alone,
Don’t weep after me,
You make me cry too,
If it helps to know,
I’m not afraid of dying,
Just afraid of losing you,
I can’t shake off that feeling of regret,
One where I wish to give you more time,
May be, just one more day,
One more life,
So we can do all the things we promised ourselves,
To be together, so I can say I all I ever wanted,
You know I can never leave you when you need me,
Call out to me so I can stay,
All the things that hurt now don’t mean a thing,
But it’s just the nature of things,
Never wonder what is on the other side,
It is irrelevant without you,
I hope you won’t feel the same about life,
When I’m there missing you,
I will still be with you,
Right here in memory,
I will still fly with the birds,
When they feed off the earth that once made me,
It’s not the same, I know,
I’ll wait for you to come join me,
Hold my hand till then,
When I fly I’ll take you with me.
Goodbye my love, please don’t forget me,
Forever together we will exist in death,
When I am stranded alone I know,
You will come rescue me.