1.  There is nothing romantic about the way our hair falls out or the way we hover over the open toilet like there's no other empty space in the house.
2. Do not think that it will be easier to love us because the love we aren’t giving ourselves will go to you.
3. You can trail your fingers along my rib cage, count every vertebrae in my back like marbles stacked high on top of each other. This is not beautiful, this is what dying looks like.
4. I’m sorry for the smell of my breath, but there’s no amount of toothpaste that could cover up the smell of myself rotting from the inside out.
5. “I thought you had to be skinny to have an eating disorder.”
5.   “You don’t look like you starve yourself.”
5.   I know that you wish you could hold me without worrying i’ll turn to dust if you squeeze too hard.
6.   I grew up being told that my body is a temple and I should treat it as such, but I don’t think this is right, see; temples can be destroyed but it always takes another person. I am doing this to myself.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate without feeling guilty.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate.
8.   One day, I will be nothing and you will be nothing, and i’m sorry that i’m already so close to being gone.
9.   I want to get better. I am trying to get better.
10. Do not think that loving us will be easier, because the love we do not give ourselves is gone, and we cannot love you more than we don’t love ourselves.

the heat in the pit of my stomach
is so familiar,
tears run down my cheeks
when I try to suppress it

This body and I, we don't get along.
I look back at old pictures, and remember how I felt.
Body turned, chin down, stomach in.
Hoping, in those brief moments between the flash and capture,
that I would be frozen in time as a smaller version of myself.

i can't catch my image in the mirror
try to haunt it with my eyes
but the glibberish mass
escapes narrowly
everytime

i searched for a scale in this room
but the drawers are all empty
no number to cry over
but also no pride
just uncertainty

i want to brush my itching teeth
there is no brush, nor paste
reaching for a packet of gum
i chew inexorably
latching onto it

on christmas eve
i wished for nothing more
than
a scale, a toothbrush
and some pride

“your body is so beautiful,” he whispers to me, 2:30 am parked in my driveway, breath heating up the windows, hands tracing patterns on my skin

your body is so beautiful. this is a body that has stepped on the scale eight times a day, brain noting every slight change in the number that blinks back. your body is so beautiful. this body has cried from hunger pains, has sat on ***** bathroom floors with ******* pressed inside my throat, praying for strength i didn't have

your body is so beautiful. a body that has spent countless hours in front of the mirror, picked apart and scrutinized from every angle; a body that’s been stuffed and starved, emptied and filled, hated and cursed – this is it, this is the body he means

i’ve known boys who have used words as nothing more than keys to unlock doors inside me, who have strung together letters and sounds as nothing more than a means to achieve an end. i’ve known boys who have made promises never intended to be kept, whispered words in parking lots and quiet cars and city streets that have never amounted to what they implied

“your body is so beautiful,” he whispers to me, and against all odds, he means it. and even if he doesn’t, to like this body when i’m with him is enough, to feel at home in this skin is enough

and to hold his hand in mine is enough,
and to see him smile at me from across the room is enough

When the topic of conversation in class was about finding meaning in life
I struggled to find a reasoning behind why
I choose to keep fighting
the same **** voice that keeps on illuminating
the parts of my heart that don't need extra lighting
For reasons of staying safe
secure enough to keep from igniting
any other demons that make joy seem uninviting

My heart is tired of trying
to heal

My feelings boil over
like a *** of forgotten water
forcing me to clean up a mess that I did not ask for
I am tired
But still refuse to be fired from life itself

Why do I keep fighting
If my life is not something I admire

I have sisters who wage wars on their bodies too
trying to reach a place where they feel like they are somebody to some body
and not a disease
that strips them of all they were created to be
We are tired

Yet I ride waves of urges so familiar to the ocean of darkness that my heart rages
because I just want to feel free
because my future family and clients need me
because honesty is the key to living authentically
And if I'm being honest then I'm able to see
past the reality
that is my eating disorder

I desire more
which means that I am more
as my worth does not come from being the best me for others
but rather it comes from a deep understanding
that my life is my own and not my own
equally

Realizing that my hands are strong enough
are big enough to hold
even the pieces of my soul
that fail to fit the mold
of what is normal

But why can't normal have permission to be broken
Instead of whole

I used to think love was when someone gave you a warm tingly feeling,
If cherry chap-stick erupted into an emotion,
If cotton candy could bleed.

Now I know that love is heavy.
Love is heavy and sweet, with occasional bitter layers in between; love has a mouth on it.
Love will keep you in line.
Love will blur the lines entirely but still expect you to remain inside
them.
When you feel love, you become drenched in it, you are simply sopping wet with irrational decisions spawned out of love.
It is a weight I will gladly carry.
I will walk into the ocean with no stopping in sight carrying armfuls of love.