When I was younger
I was stick thin.
My aunt pulled my mom aside and cautiously whispered
Do you think she's been eating enough?
My third grade teacher
gave me the nickname
Skinny Minnie,
my gym teacher told me to
go eat a cheeseburger.

Now I look in the mirror
and cannot find my younger self.
My aunt did not blink an eye
when I said
I'm not hungry.
My teacher does not question
when I bring only a water bottle to lunch,
someone, please,
tell me to go eat a cheeseburger,
because I have only eaten
two-hundred calories today
but no one is calling me skinny.

I want to destroy.
I want to burn,
to break,
to bleed;
I want to feel the sting
of shattered glass
tearing through the tough skin
of my heels.
To see red.
To ache.
I want to breathe smoke.

You called me selfish.
For a long time I felt guilty,
until I turned you from a victim
into a villain.

As the anger has faded
from the lights of an ambulance
into the dull, neon red glow of an
emergency exit sign,
I have begun to realize that

you saw me as the bad guy, too.
You probably still do,
and maybe I am selfish,
and maybe I want to apologize,

but what if they're all right
and you were just trying to
get me to say sorry?
What if you're just dying to
see me come crawling back to you?
I don't want you to think
I need you,
because I don't,

but I'm not selfish,
and I don't want you to think so.

Maybe all this time,
all these feelings I thought I had
weren't what they seemed to be.

Maybe I went numb
because you weren't
a warm bath,
you were ice water.

Maybe I buried that part of myself
so long ago
that even I don't remember
where it is.

Maybe I need
to find it.

Maybe I already have.