when i told you i had loved you all this time
you said you had no idea
and that makes sense because
while i was looking at you with loving eyes
you were looking at her the same way

You don’t know me.
You don’t even realize 
that something’s wrong,
that I’m not the little girl
I used to be.
You don’t realize 
that the bandaged “mosquito bites”
on my  legs
are self-harm scars 
that I’m too ashamed
to let you see. 
You don’t realize 
how much it stings
to watch almost every person 
I’ve ever cared about 
leave.
You don’t realize 
that I still feel guilty
every time I eat.
You don’t realize
just how much I smoke
and how much I drink.
You don’t even realize
that you don’t know me.

we think we’re made of numbers. percentages on tests,
pounds on a scale,
likes on a photo,
price tags on clothes.
but we’re not.
we are made of love and happiness and they way we laugh.
we’re made of good memories and late nights and past-curfews.
we have more substance than numbers.
you’re not what you look like.
you’re the music you listen to,
the shows you watch,
the art you make,
the flowers in your hair,
your favorite blanket.
you’re not the pimple on your nose
or the pudge on your stomach.
You’re not your thighs or your teeth.
you’re the color of your hair,
you’re your favorite band,
you’re the mismatch socks you wear
You’re what you love, you’re not what you look like or the body you are in.

they told me not to sip too much from the solo cups
if I didn’t want to get ***** tonight.
the feminist issue here is not keeping up
but keeping low, keeping unnoticed, 
staying as safe as that moldy orange in the Safeway,
never gonna get plucked up and ***** that way.


they told me not to indulge my senses and enhance my intoxication 
levels at risk of decreasing my chances of 
survival against a ******
attacking me.


they told me I feel like I need to keep up with the guys with my drinks,
match my stack of cups to theirs, and I just think 
that’s *******, I just want to drink my ****** beer,
but they said that’s how I’ll get *****
well maybe I binge on a lot of bad habits.
I pile them up on the CVS counter like a checklist of things not to do

smoke, spend too much money and time on ebay bidding on
vintage rings and things I’ll never need, eat a row of oreos out of
my roomate’s care package,
and drink too much at the occasional
party where I fraternize with the males from planet greek,
but does that make me guilty for getting *****?


today I woke up feeling like a damaged cause,
like a present that fell out of the back door of a UPS truck going 
75 miles per hour on the highway in East Tennessee
and I never got to my destination.
should I have buckled my seat belt tighter?


society makes me feel crazy for thinking I can try to prevent
a violent act of maddening hate against a woman’s body,
or maybe a man’s, let’s not discriminate,
brought on by alcohol, late night musing, and punch bowl brewing.

maybe they should tell the rapists to keep their pants zipped 
and their ***** to themselves unless they are requested.

keep your hands in your pastel short pockets and 
let me go on with my business of being a proud, righteous woman.

On my right thigh is the most honest piece of art I have ever created.
You may call it my masterpiece,
Because the finished product
was created from years and years of major and minor additions.
****** brushstrokes that mark each time the phrase “not good enough” rang too heavy in my ears. 
Sick, faded tallies of scars that tell the story of my life the way some parents tally the heights of their children on the kitchen wall. 
But instead of growth these lines mark failure and unlike a child impatient to mature,
Each line makes me sick to my stomach for the regression it represents.
Lines and lines of railroad track designs left in the indelible ink of imperfection.
An autobiography written in the hieroglyphics of my sorrow,
Wounds sealed like an ancient tomb but with a map of scars proving that once these grounds were holy,
Governing my life like a pharaoh with a birthright.
A visual representation of a feeling constantly fought and lost
An unavoidable reminder that yes, sometimes the scariest enemy I have to face is myself and here are the marks left behind when the demons of my past manage to claim a brief but ferocious victory over my self control.

Now, I am a perfectionist.

This means by the time I was old enough to understand my shortcomings I had figured out that no lesson stings in your memory quite as much as when you start using blood instead of ink
When you let heartache become your muse and self loathing your mistress, 
and suddenly you’re imprisoned by the adrenaline of freeing warm red paint from behind a soft **** canvas.
The first time I felt the release of a razor on my skin, I was gripped with an infatuation strong enough to break the programming of nature and turn my own body against itself as my skin became the victim of my own hands. 
Heartache after heartache I eased the pain,
Becoming michael angelo with a thin metal paintbrush and a sistine chapel that burned when the shower was too hot.
Hiding my latest work of art under long pants and excuses.
Finding love only in the dark because what if he sees my skin and realizes that some days I can’t even love myself?
On my right thigh is the most devastating piece of art I’ve ever created. 
You may call it my Achilles heel,
Because the finished product, which I shamefully admit,I do still edit occasionally,
was created from years and years of marveling over the beauty of the world but never learning how to see the beauty in a blank canvas.
Cherish your beautiful blank canvas.

music.
there is no description for it
i could spend endless amounts of time 
thinking of every word that fits it

but the only one that fits,for me is

alive.


music makes me feel alive.


bass pounding, words screaming

i wish i could dance all day and all night

the music urges me, it tells me
to sing as loud as i can
and 
dance as hard as i can
soft guitar, voices whispering

the voices penetrate my mind 
the rhythm and melody raise goosebumps

tears in my eyes.
from pain?
happiness?

i don't even care.


I lose myself.

when music is on, I am gone.

I have left this world and entered
another one.
a better one.

a world full of endless love and beauty 
in this world,
anything is possible 
and I have a voice that angels would be jealous of

in this world, my dance enchants every person for miles

in this world, I dance on top of clouds


without music, there is no world

it is empty,
dark
and
 i am lost

instead of color,
it is merely 
black and white

there are few memories made

no singing with windows down

no dancing with hairbrush in hand

no songs to sing every word to

without music, there is no feeling
 of being alive

no feeling of anger,
sadness,
and complete
 bliss.



music is my soulmate.

my one true love

and we are going to live a long

and happy life together.

To eat or not to eat that is the question?

Seems like the journey to the answer is the source of my depression.

Obsession.

Stressed out.

No doubt.

This is hell.

Touch the bones 
As we speak in playful tones about my ill pains

Seems as if everyday I struggle with the same thing
.
This disorder has me in chains 

Doing strange things for minor relief

Crazy how fourteen years of grief

Yet I still count the calories of air

Combing out hair 

The stress causes the remains of my life to break into pieces 

Slices of happiness never lasts seems as
I’m bathing in my own blood bath

The challenge is to finish last 

Slow down the binge 

Eat normal like your friends 

Repeat.

Think I can break habit just because it’s the right thing to do?

You think I enjoy this relationship with food?

I’d divorce my past and marry your future if it meant I’d be okay 

But I remain in this mess
I began when they told I’d be fat again.

Tell a friend 
I let weight meet me again.

Feels like a sin to some how feel joy.

**** the dreams of this skinny beast.

Hug the cookies and drink the wine 

This is the cry of a disordered mind. 

Welcome to my inner thoughts

My illness greets you.

Leave your sanity at the door for you wont need that silly thing anymore.

Now eat until you can’t move then starve yourself times two. 

Make the grades because if you’re intelligent then they remain away 

Telling you how much they wish their body looked like mine 

Silly envy I here all the time 
I wonder if they knew my fears 

Would they escape?

But much like me, 
Once you figure things out it’s much too late.