I want to be skinny
say it clean, say it cruel.
No metaphor softens
this razor-edged rule.
I don’t want “healthy,”
I don’t want “enough,”
I want bones like a headline
that screams she was tough.
I’m mad at the mirror,
it won’t tell the truth.
I’m mad at my body
for daring to soothe.
Food feels like betrayal,
a forced compromise
every bite says stay
when I’m begging erase.
The internet parades
its porcelain saints,
all narrow and quiet
with elegant pains.
They float through the world
like they earned their space,
while I’m loud and too much
in my own ******* face.
I’m angry at hunger,
angry it knocks.
Angry at toilets,
angry at clocks.
Angry my body remembers too well
every private attempt
to look smaller than hell.
I hate how survival
wears virtue and glow.
I hate how I’m praised
when I look like I’m low.
I hate that control
feels like finally winning,
then rots into fear
but keeps on pretending.
I am rage in a body
that learned how to cope
by turning itself
into less than a hope.
I am fire and grief
and a fist in my chest
not shallow, not stupid,
just tired, obsessed.
And if this sounds ugly,
good
that’s the point.
This want isn’t pretty,
it’s a splintered joint.
I don’t want to vanish,
I want to be seen
but the world only claps
when the ribs intervene.