she wanted to be skinny.

     she wanted to ignore the skin on her body
     until it hung loosely off her skeleton
     like a wrinkled shirt on a hanger
     that needed ironing.

she wanted to be a stick
so that she could fit through the
spaces in the dark of trees
and understand how they fed off of
themselves.

     she wanted to know what it was like
     to have knives instead of collarbones,
     carving off the little chunks of fat,
     and throwing them to the side, letting the
     festering rats devour the residue of
     fourteen years of life.

she wanted to have hips that served as
mountains, looking like the alps,
with climbers covered in furs throwing hooks
over the niches in her body.

     she wanted a ribcage that would hold
     even the mightiest bird, without letting
     a single feather breach her defenses,
     never letting a ferocious caw escape her,

because she wanted to be thin.