Today is the day I pick up the pieces.
In the following hours I will begin to unfold myself from the crumpled mess of paper you left me.
I will find beauty in the creases.
I will no longer carve into my legs the way your memory is carved into my delusional brain.
I will no longer reminisce on something that never really was,
I will focus on the parts where you left my mind in disarray.
I know in my lean heart that this is not something you do to the ones you love,
You do not bring insanity to the ones that try to save you,
You do not intoxicate them, cover with their unscathed skin, and leave their bones buried in mud.
You do not burn your rescuer.

You wreak of lighter fluid,
and in my sickened mind I concluded once more that food was poison.
My thoughts were a terrible escape to where there was only the stench of raw sewage.
I couldn't get past the smell,
I thought I'd never be able to swallow again for I was so nauseated.
My teeth were turning yellow, my throat was on fire, and in my ears the constant ringing of a bell.
I turned to a sack of weak calcium sticks waiting for an answer to why you robbed me,
I blamed myself for so long because I thought I caused a misunderstanding.
No I was blind but now I see.

I will love myself in all the places our friendship forgot,
I'll love myself better than you claimed too in ways you didn't know how to.
I will never stop.
I will say only kind things to my body and I will only see the beautiful things in my mind.
I will treat myself well and a different outcome I am destined to find.
I deserve real.