Your skin, translucent
Your shoulders are sharp
My little hands pulled out chunks of hair
when I tried to braid the frail pieces of breaking, brown strands
I hid them under your pillow to avoid your tears of frustration
Just another reason to say, “I’m so ugly, so gross, so ugly”

Black holes hollowing your cheeks
Red rose colored water lines
Blue green seaweed swimming through the skin over your cheeks
The deep darkness of the ocean swallowing your mind

Filling up your stomach with water
to make the scale read heavier for the doctors
Vomiting it up before the presence of hydration in your veins
could make you live an extra day

Your jeans went from a size double zero
to a baggy children’s size
Dinners out turned into a messy plate of cut up food
None of which was eaten

Ana gouged out your eyes and replaced them with ticking clocks
And walked your bony feet to the scale four times a day
What is left of your skin is painted in red and deep purple splotches
Breaking nails and yellow brittle teeth

Only Ana can speak the language you comprehend
But not even she could tell you, “you’re beautiful”
You only hear muffled underwater words of disgust
Swimming hazily in a sea of pretty girls made of bones
Breathing Hydrocodone to numb the hunger pains
Eating Xanax to bring them closer to death.