i've been a woman for nineteen and a few months years
and i've never looked at waitstaff
and asked
can i get that with a side of guilt?
but i should have
because it feels like that's what i
am ordering
instead of fries because
all the salt in the world
can't cover up the taste of guilt and self loathing i feel for eating sometimes
this is for all of the ladies i know who look at cookies
longingly, but tell themselves no
only to eat an entire box of them later
and cry
and most women will never admit to it
but i've been there
and cookies don't taste so good when
you're tossing them up
and this is for the ladies i have watched in the grocery store
eyeballing the candy bars like they are men in dark
allies or
snakes in the grass
because the magazines sitting right beside
them are watching you watching that candy bar watching you watching your weight watching those inches around your waist watching you
and telling you that you aren't good enough
a moment on the lips forever on
the- hold that ******* thought
because my lips and hips have two things in common-- they are big
and they want all this
******* to stop
every time a woman prattles off how many calories are in a drink
i can't help but correct her in my mind because
i know for a fact that there are five more calories in that than she told me
because i've been counting calories and playing games with my stomach since
second grade.
i may be **** at algebra, but i know intake out-take math like
i know the smell of my grandma's cigarettes.
eating meals with other women
is unbearable because i am tiered
of having to eat entire cinnamon buns
to myself because
my friends wont split them with me
and i'm tiered of watching women
talk about eating too much but
wanting to get
back
on
it
tomorrow like
feeding themselves is a crime
and so the next time i go to
cookout for a blueberry shake
i'll ask you to leave out the guilt
because it fills my throat up
like sand and my teeth
are brittle and tired from being
bared and ground
while i
battle with myself
over the baked goods at
a coffee shop
wondering if
i feel like hating myself
today

at the risk of being weird
I want to ask you to **** me
Even though it is only 5am.
6am comes…and I do not
And you are still asleep
And I would like to be
If my ****** wasn’t aching like an empty stomach
throbbing like a sore tooth.
Spooning is sweet but I want go get out of the cutlery drawer.
It is 7:28 and you have rolled away from me
And I can’t help but wonder if having
Me in your bed is no more than a child holding a bear in his sleep.
But stuffed bears can’t feel insecurity.
The women of your past have been beautiful and immaculate
                          (I saw the **** picture one sent you before we went to sleep--
                            instagram filters can't even make me look that good)
like
stone Venuses, lovely despite the fact that they were made from **** foam.
And I am neither immaculate or made of stone
as you well know
since you have put your hand on my stomach so many times.
And I do not want to be needy but I can’t help but think that
The reason you are away from me
asleep at 7:35
Is that the ghosts of these models that haunt you look nothing like me.

maybe that's why I hate math so much
because i have spent so much of my time
with
numbers being
drilled into
my head
and
showing on my
hips
or falling off of my
rib
s
because I know
how many calories are in each item of my fridge
better than the backs of my hands
and the lines carved into
my
thighs
like tally marks

John Keats
John Keats
John
Please put your scarf on.