The year of Skinny Pop and sugar-free Jell-o cups,
we guzzled vitamin water and *****,
toasting to high school and survival
complimenting each other’s thigh gaps.
Trying diets we found on the Internet:
menthol cigarettes, eating in front of a mirror, donating blood
replacing meals with other practical hobbies like making flower crowns or fainting.
Wondering why I haven’t had my period in months
or why breakfast tastes like giving up
or how many more productive ways I could have spent my time today
besides Googling the calories in the glue of a US envelope.
Watching America’s Next Top Model like the gospel
hunching naked over a bathroom scale shrine
crying into an empty bowl of Coco Puffs
because I only feel pretty when I’m hungry.
If you are not recovering, you are dying.
By the time I was sixteen, I had already experienced being clinically overweight, underweight, and obese.
As a child, “fat” was the first word people used to describe me
which didn’t offend me until I found out it was supposed to.
When I lost weight, my dad was so proud.
He started carrying my before-and-after photo in his wallet.
So relieved he could stop worrying about me getting diabetes.
He saw a program on the news about the epidemic with obesity.
Said he is just so glad to finally see me taking care of myself.
If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital.
If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.
So when I evaporated, of course everyone congratulated me on getting healthy.
Girls at school who never spoke to me before stopped me in the hallway to ask how I did it.
I say, “I am sick.”
They say, “No, you’re an inspiration.”
How could I not fall in love with my illness?
With becoming the kind of silhouette people are supposed to fall in love with?
Why would I ever want to stop being hungry when anorexia was the most interesting thing about me?
So how lucky it is, now, to be boring.
The way not going to the hospital is boring.
The way looking at an apple and seeing only an apple, not sixty or half an hour of sit-ups is boring.
My story may not be as exciting as it used to, but at least there is nothing left to count.
The calculator in my head finally stopped.
I used to love the feeling of drinking water on an empty stomach
waiting for the coolness to slip all the way down and land in the well,
not obsessed with being empty but afraid of being full.
I used to be proud when I was cold in a warm room.
Now, I am proud I have stopped seeking revenge on this body.
This was the year of eating when I was hungry without punishing myself
and I know it sounds ridiculous, but that **** is hard.
When I was little, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said
“small.”

my heart nearly stopped every time i had to cross the street
so let’s thank the queen for writing it down
before she’s just another thing i have to step over
all the rest have tickled my feet so far
and everything under construction reminds me that these days
the only remedy seems to be better luck and more cloud cover

i’ve been racing to crash on the couch
just to wake up to see if i have time for it all
and i want the stereotype to be true so i have nothing to cry about  
with the way things are going
you’d tell me not to be so brutal to myself
but the thrill i used to know is now paying its dues to the concrete

i was almost convinced i wasn’t asleep
when she whispered paris
nothing, everything may have changed
so this is not like anything i’ve never meant:

my heart nearly stopped with the regret of not talking to you
it's hard killing birds when you don't have any stones and
besides this time i think i've really done it
two days and this is already my favorite story but
second chances don't have to be so mysterious
maybe i just wanted to see you smile again

i should have said it w/o one of and the s after the L
still choosing o over x
and your pull showed my hands a home in the back of your denim
two across the channel makes the significant not so, if you want it
i’ll keep looking for you so long as you
don’t stop drawing me maps

if i died in my indecision then
your mouth showed me heaven
you’re the closest thing to purpose
i’ve ever tasted

i wish you knew how much i mean that

Here are two pupils
whose moons of black
transform to cripples
all who look:

each lovely lady
who peers inside
take on the body
of a toad.

Within these mirrors
the world inverts:
the fond admirer's
burning darts

turn back to injure
the thrusting hand
and inflame to danger
the scarlet wound.

I sought my image
in the scorching glass,
for what fire could damage
a witch's face?

So I stared in that furnace
where beauties char
but found radiant Venus
reflected there.

Freud says tattoos
Are
The Manifestation
Of a
Trauma

Every point
A
Separate pain
We
Have
Suffered

It took
Two
And a
Half
Hours

To complete
The
Diary
Of my
Trauma

And half a million perforations

To convert
Those
Memories
Into something

New

And

Beautiful

To finally
Let go
Of the past

This is not a love poem
this is an I love you do you love me like
I love you poem
do you know me like
you think you do poem
this is a would you be disappointed
if you did poem
an I have been feeling the chilling of the air
and I cant tell if it is just the fault of the season
or if you, too, are cooling
whatever heat you had for me
browning and falling and
crumbling between my fingers
like the leaves of these oak trees
in november poem
a what would I need to do to keep us warm poem
and this is also
an I may be completely mistaken poem
an it was seventy degrees today poem
this is a show me I am completely mistaken poem