My friend Ana has many followers.
She feeds us promises and fills our dreams
when we cannot, will not, sate the cries
of our bodies because those are easy to hush
during the din of day, but not in the void,
night when

my friend Ana comes through a glowing
screen in the form of thigh gaps, community forum posts,
and calorie counting apps where our intake dwindles,
anticipating the moment we take in the waist of  our skirts
so maybe that boy with the blue-jean eyes notices
our size 0 because on a scale of 1 to 10, we don’t fit.

My friend Ana remains forever in our minds,
teaching us to listen to our inner strength as muscle tone
ebbs, seething when we reach for some bread, but loving
the sweat-drenched skin as we run nowhere on a treadmill that we believe leads to a salvation as perfect as the symmetry of ribs—

of cheekbones that jut out from a thin and beautiful face
which smiles at muted murmurs and falls as I look
in the mirror at bodies shaped so divine, you might see
premature grace because
Ana never dies.