“Eat your dinner, son. Eat your dinner.” The parallel invisibility of children in the same spaces. We never ate together at a table unless it was at Olive Garden or Applebee’s, never ate together unless our faces were lit with television fluorescence and the pressure of conversation was dulled with background noise. More walls than one could count in the living room, more than what was built, enough to surprise, stun, scare a kid. There was never an opening wide enough to look at someone’s entire face straight on. I learned life is just corners.

       “I don’t know how you’re okay, but if you ever aren’t, you can talk to me.”

       Why would you say that to me? Do you know why? No answer.

       I knew why. Paper receipts. Letters typed out and printed. Travel pamphlets of cold words.

Food and what it does to us. Children peering into the fridge; the sensitivity of breakdowns on the dinner plate. Arguments. Shaky silverware, hidden napkins under the couch, ringing bells fixed and bolted into place in the far back of unclean new brains. Years after, it’s a different couch, it’s a different dinner plate, but the frequency is the same. It’s awful, it’s frustrating. Insanity on the surface but deep down it makes sense. That’s true pain, you know. Where’s the ******* screwdriver.

            I’m nervous and it shows. “Would you like to say grace before dinner?”

            Save grace? Trade grace? I never found what you’re looking for. I’m so sorry.

            Forks on the wrong side and too many knives. Napkin goes on your lap this time and I’m so confused.

At least I can say I tried. Eat your dinner eat your dinner eat your dinner. There’s no dinner for you. Go to your room. Survival and punishment. Sometimes it feels like all I have is my hands. Food is under my nails and I can’t get it out and that doesn’t feel right but how do you stop. Where is it? There’s no stopping, just ringing. Can anybody else hear it? The family with three sizes of spoons is watching me like I am an animal in a burning barn. Drag me out.

long hours today
the minutes sinking deep
the seconds sinking deeper
filling me up all of the way
no room, love, sorry

full
but hasn’t hit bottom yet
hasn’t touched center
yet

and it’s like the song:
“you know I’d never hurt you that way
you’re just so pretty
in your pain”

am I beautiful to you now?
bent, humbled, begging.
cold,
can’t find a way to look you in the eye.

no room for anything but the clocks,
for anything but the guilt ticking and trickling
down my throat
sinking deep with the minutes
sinking deeper with the seconds

I don’t think I can be beautiful to you
on my feet,
spine straight.
I think I must be cut at the joints.

I’m still not eating, sweetheart,
the weight’s gained back and it hangs heavy around my thighs
and no one can really see it but me
and the mirror

it feels like every time I look at myself in the reflection of a car window
someone else is already inside

I used to love how thin I was,
I used to hate how thin I was,
how I looked emaciated and unhealthy,
all ribs and hip bones, all angles
that would dig into the soft spots of those I loved

but still I miss the way
all of my clothes hung like dead bodies off of my sharp curves
the way the fabric fell like a waterfall

now it clings like static,
like a reminder, like a smell,
and I feel stronger in some ways
and much, much weaker in others.

wish I could just
roll down the car window.

“what do you have
to say?”

I’d say I’m sorry,
sweetheart,
but every second of silence
dripped down my throat like cement blocks
and now I’m all stoppered up inside
“what do you have
to say?”
I’m not even breathing right,
sweetheart,
and the words
hit a wall
every time.

I don’t know, I would say,
I don’t know where it comes from.
I don’t know who manufactures the cement.
I wish I could peel back my skin, muscle, sinew,
and peer into the factory.

I had a fantasy where I cried, sobbed, in front of a room full of people
left, came back, and then explained,
it’s ok, I cry when I’m happy too
and last night I had a dream I watched an animal-human hybrid
bleed to death in a shallow body of water

and nowadays I wake up in the morning and lie there hoping there’s been a mistake

and it didn’t used to be like this,
I can’t put my finger on it, sweetheart, but it wasn’t like this

nowadays nothing coming from my body feels right,
like I open my mouth and the spit is dark yellow,
the words are yellow-brown, the breath is yellow-green,
thoughts soft like rotting fruit,
when I sleep, I feel the flies on my eyelids

and it didn’t used to be like this
I can’t put my finger on it, sweetheart, but it wasn’t like this