You are beautiful.

Do not roll your eyes at me.
I see you.
You have never been kissed.
Boys treat you like you are contagious
and at night the popular girl's laughter
rings in your mind like an alarm clock—
you do not sleep very much.
You are nebulas and dark holes,
purple and black.
Do you not understand my metaphor?
I know what you do at night.
In the mirror you try to destroy
pieces of you that make people hate you.
That make you hate you.
Pinch and pull and twist
squeeze and squeeze,
squeeze your eyes shut—
bruises do not look better in the dark.

I know you.
So listen to me when I tell you:
Do not let years of your life
become a blur of starving
and binging starving and binging
starving and binging.
Do not form an addiction
to the growl of your stomach.
Do not wear your clothes
like an apology.
When your weight is the classroom guessing game,
when a hug from a boy is the result of a triple-dog dare,
when the girls draw pictures of you on bathroom stalls,
do not think of the peace that never waking up could bring.
Do not give up.

I am you
and I know what I am talking about.
Seven years, one eating disorder, and 50 pounds later,
I will always be in recovery
and you are still who I see in the mirror.
I am sorry I did not love you.

But trust me now,
this body is not your prison,
it is a home.
You are made of stardust
and sea water and of the
earth beneath you.
You are more than a number--
you are not as simple
as they want you to be.

I look into his eyes.
You are not here.
You are miles away
and I am  holding an open call audition.
WANTED:
A boy who does not drink
like he has something to prove.
A boy who has more than words to offer.

He leans in.
Tonight I don't back away.
We are outside,
bodies and bodies and bodies
surrounding us, dancing
around us, and I wonder
if you thought of me when
you stood here with her.

I close my eyes and try
not to pretend he is you:
Try to think of the stars,
think of the smoke escaping from the garage,
think of the eyes watching you,
think of the sweat dripping down to the dip of your back,
think of the whisky ignited in your chest—
I think of the way you smiled
when I called you pobrecito.

He kisses me.
I sway back and
he pulls our hips together.
I have not stopped missing you
in three months.
I was wrong.
His mouth changes nothing.
I still want you.
I think I hear my heart crack
but that might just be the beer bottles
shattering under our feet.

I put my hand on his chest
and push him away.
This was supposed to be us.
He was supposed to be you.
But you don't care about me
and when you kiss her,
your mind doesn't form poems.
You think about the friends
you will describe this moment to later.
When your lips leave her neck,
there is no metaphor.
The bruises are just bruises.

I walk away
and it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
My lips were numb anyway--
I didn't feel a thing.

WANTED:
A boy who drinks like he has something to prove.

I want tell him he is enough.

I.
When you sleep
your spine curls
like a question mark
and there's always
too much space.

II.
You lay alone,
belly down on your bed.
You can't breathe
and you don't mean
to but you cry out,
arms wrapped around
your body,
clutching your sides.
You fall apart.

III.
You want to scream.
You want to scream
because it hurts.
You're empty
and everything aches.
You're tired of trying
and waiting and
waiting and waiting
and always
going to bed alone.

IV.
It is a never-ending prayer.
In the back of your mind,
it plays like a soundtrack.
Please, please, please, please.

V.
They say it happens when
you least expect it.
You wonder if you can
use reverse-psychology
on the Universe.

VI.
You'll fall in love
with every man
who looks at you
without turning away.
Every touch
from any stranger
electrifies you.
You still feel it
three
days
later.

VII.
You write letters
to the Universe.
Sometimes you're
angry but usually
you're just broken.
You're always asking
*why?

My sister told me once,
"Everything between men
and women is a game"
I never understood
what she meant—until
I met you. Back and forth,
we play to see how far
we can push our boundaries
without breaking. Tonight
you can make me blush but
tomorrow you will be
up all night replaying
my hand on your chest.
They say love is our favorite game.
But baby, this was never about love.

This is about boredom,
this is entertainment.
This is a constant fight
for the upper-hand.
There are only two ways
this will end:

I.
I will fall a little in love with you.
Instead of a game, you will become
a puzzle. I'll start believing
your edges fit with mine and
I will hate myself for letting this happen again.
Because I have done this before,
I always feel too much for
people who do not feel anything
at all. I am the girl that's great
for marking time. Quick remarks,
a smirk, a laugh that is too loud—
I am neon lights and for now
you can't look away but eventually
your eyes will get tired and you
will fall in love with a girl
who looks like candlelight
.
II.
I will push you away.
I will hate you for making
me another stop on the way
to a destination
and you'll hate me for ruining
our game because this was supposed
to be fun, this was supposed to
be a boost to your ego,
a way to pass time.
But you will get over it
because girls like me are disposable
and you will replace me before
I get the chance to say I'm sorry.
I'm sorry we can't be friends that
flirt without me getting hurt I'm sorry
I can't be all fun and no commitment I'm sorry
you can't fall in love with me I'm sorry
my heart always gets in the way
You will be fine.
I won't be able to look at you.

So you see,
this is game of ours isn't fair.
You don't deserve to
feel like the bad guy
and I shouldn't let myself
get hurt again. I know I should
stop this before we get to far in but
baby, I couldn't quit
even if you asked me to.
Because my fear of losing,
my fear of getting hurt doesn't
matter because my hope,
that maybe you could be different,
that maybe you could fall in love
with me, is bigger than the fear
of losing a game.

While we play this back and forth,
please remember that
I'm not trying to get hurt.
I'm just a girl who tries
so hard and is never the one--
but would rather play and lose
then not play at all.

I know I don't make sense.
But the game is more fun
that way, isn't it?
Please just don't stop.
Smile at me,
touch me,
look at me,
that way you do—
our game
has only just begun.

I look in the mirror
I can only see pieces.
You have taken so much of me, darling.
There are holes the shape of your hands
all over my body.
Big and gaping.
I don't remember what I look like without them.

You were real.
I had fallen in love with words
in a letter before.
With promises made
over telephone lines
thousands of miles apart.  
You were real.
Skin and bones.
Big hands and blue eyes.
For six months
I fell asleep to your voice.
I don't sleep much anymore.

We were just friends.
You didn't want me
but you gave me the stars
and your lips and those
hands--******* those hands.
You didn't want commitment
but if I could have just kept your mouth
on my mouth and my legs around
your waist
If I could have kept you
in the backseat of your car
If I could have made the stars
hang in the sky forever
If I—
I didn't want to fall in love with you.
You should have never held my hand.
You should have stayed.

There's a sad boy who loves me now.
We're just friends
but I give him my body and sometimes
when I close my eyes, his hands
feel like yours.
I don't tell him I love him.
He knows I couldn't.
The sad understand—
we only love the ones
who can't love us back.

At night,
my fingers itch and
I write you letters
you will never read.
It's always the same
two sentences:
*Never tell a sad girl
you love her.
She won't believe you
until you leave her.

I stood at the shoreline
and I
didn't feel anything
I wanted to feel small,
I wanted to yearn for the horizon.
She was walking into the waves,
my mother would later tell my father
She was asking to be swept away
I was asking to be swept away
When the waves crashed
into me, the water stung
my skin
a thousand needles
but I didn't flinch
The sea pushed me away,
tried to knock me off my feet,
and return me to land
where I belonged,
Take me with you
I stroked the water,
and begged the sea
Please, please
I prayed for waves
that would be strong enough,
cold enough,
violent enough
to make me feel like someone else.
I would not survive in the sea
but I could not survive on land.

I left.
I drove back to a city that was not ours.
In a town miles away,
someone said my name and you forgot
to hate the sound. Your fiancée
feels like an ocean wave and when you kiss
you can feel water crash against your neck.
Her hands wash over you until you are someone new.

My best friend told me
Someday you will meet someone
who will make you forget
I have not met any ocean waves.
Only deserts who make you appear like a mirage.
Vast and empty, I grow tired trying to fill you in their spaces.

I want to save myself.
I do not want to need someone to make me forget.
I want time and tears and months of not remembering
to be enough--
Why am I not enough?

When I dream I can forget who I am
but I can not forget your face.
So I stand on shorelines begging
*Please.

I did not love you,

I do not love you.

But I have forty unsent letters

hidden between my books.

No one takes the time to write

letters but I have taken hours

for you.



You were my greatest story—

The boy who lived life fast,

who made sure to never get

what he wanted.

He left everything broken.



There was a girl.

He used to make her laugh.

Now she hated him, she avoided him

but he knew she still searched for him.

Most days she would turn away

but some days she would see him

and walk past him like she could

not see him.

He wondered if she cared

or did not care at all. He did not care

enough to find out.

He lost this girl.

He saw a glimpse of her face, a shadow

on the concrete and watched her

walk away for the last time.

He did not feel

anything.



My greatest story:

The boy who did not care

about the girl who cared so much.



I do not love you,

I did not love you.

Last month I threw away forty letters.

I have grown tired of trying to spin

fiction into fact.