no matter
how hard
i try
i can't make my pain beautiful;
i can't make myself beautiful;
i can't make myself feel beautiful.

no matter
how hard
i try
i cannot convince myself that beauty
is a taste i enjoy on my tongue,
is a feeling i crave, that burning sensation
at the back of my throat,
on the back of my tongue

i cannot make an illness beautiful, for simply
it is not.
illnesses aren't beautiful, and they were never meant to be-
that's why people try to cure them.
in a world where beauty is the standard,
ugliness will not survive.
ironic, then, that illnesses are ugly
yet illnesses are becoming strategies
to achieving beauty

what an ugly concept.

concept: the more i *****, the skinnier i become
the more beautiful i am, right?
concept: the less i eat, the more i gain
concept: the thinspiration tag on tumblr has all of the
answers. so answer me this:
why am i so fragile? i feel my soul must be weaker
than the stick-thin bodies photographed for toxic aspirations;
surely they must snap like twigs whenever they fall...
i know the ease with which i break apart whenever i fall down

concept: i have friends and family that love me,
people who are attracted to me,
my friends' friends admire me, aspire to be like me
i should not be so insecure, so desperate to make myself skinnier,
more beautiful, more perfect.
bones are not the default of beauty.

bones are what survive beneath the ground when all else rots away;
these illnesses will have me rotting
before my bones can even finish growing.
there will be weeds and vines growing around my ribs, weaving
like a macabre masterpiece mounting the soil on which i've laid myself to rest
and my skeleton's skinless fingers, slender and spiraled into the ground,
will be the only thing about me that have ever had a grip.

lately i've been made up of broken sanity, loosely grasping
at the frayed edges of myself
as i come apart each night, again and again - my skeletal fingers
will grip this earth with a strength to rival my passion for nature
for while i will be dead, at least i will finally be
committed to something
i love.

what a shame that i'll never love who i am enough
to be committed to myself.