When I came home and found you lying on the couch
Eating vanilla ice cream and watching Oprah
On a Thursday
I knew something was wrong
I always wonder if the way I taught you
To tie little pink bows at the end of your wrists
Cut off your circulation
Causing you to slice them open
Watching the blood pool beneath you in the bathtub
It rippled, so smooth and gently
So ladylike, as you have always been taught
My girl, I know you watched me in the mirror
As I synched my waist together with different diet regiments
Plucked the hairs above my brow and beneath my chin
As if my skin grew flowers beneath its surface
Now, as I find deposits of ash and *****
Hidden in the folds of your restlessness and depression
I know it is more than teenage angst
But I wait until I can longer deny your illness
I will tell you you are not sick
Even as the blood creeps up your forearm
The scabs are gasping for sunlight
As they peak beyond the seams of your sleeve
When you are sent home from school for being suicidal
We wonder why you never told us
But you did, my girl
My brilliant girl
Though your lips never formed the words
How could we not have seen this coming?
Your father will get defensive
His armor raised as you become child yet again
Fifteen, not girl, not yet woman
It will be hard for me to ignore you during an episode
But baby, I only do this because I love you
There were no training wheels before we were dropped
Into unfamiliar terrain
This sickness is a battlefield for us, too
But we still fear the untapped power of those little white pills
It is not that we do not want you to get better
We just don't want to lose
The little girl we have always known.