it's one of those nights
when everything hurts
everything hurts so **** much
and i know you aren't mine to miss
and i know you're slowly forgetting
my voice and
the way we talked
replacing me with a better memory than i could ever be
but all i want right now
all i need
is you
to just
be here with me

say
my name.

her arms are slightly less chubby than mine
her ***** are slightly perkier
i have a slightly prettier face
she has slightly nicer clothes.
and though her smile is crooked and snaggle-toothed
and her eyes carry black bags
and her hair is the color of straw mixed with mud
she must be slightly better than me
because he wanted her
slightly
m
o
r
e

Many evenings, the curtains drawn,
you slept restless
as a new-born accepting
their life and the world.

Quilted in night
but come morning
you'd rise again,
write the branches of your tree.

Black upon a fresh page,
every word still in the breeze
long after your roots
were destroyed.

i used to be the girl who didn't eat,
the girl with the voice in the back of her mind tell her awful things about herself
i was the girl who didn't want anyone elses help
refused it
the way my friends looked at me
made me proud
proud to know i knew something they didn't
proud to know i was hiding something
often they'd ask
"are you hungry?"
"why aren't you eating?"
"you're not turning anorexic are you?"
and even coming from your friends those words can hurt
and you can shake it off
smirk it off
walk away
but knowing a little of that was a bit of truth made me all clear to you
they knew
they said
"i'm only trying to help"
yeah trying to help me get fat
i thought
those demons in my mind
the way i looked at myself in the mirror
all i saw
HATE
my legs
to huge
hated them
my stomach
brings me back to that summer day
i was ready
ready to swim
and was finally feeling confident
had just bought a new bikini and was so excited
put my new bikini on
and my cousin comes in and says
"you're stomach is disgusting'
do you know how that feels to have someone say you're stomach is disgusting
made me feel ******
made me feel insecure
as insecure as id ever been
i covered up from there on
i stayed in
i made sure no one saw me
i kept cover
and until this day
i'm still that girl
with the thoughts that haunt me and tell me
"no one hates you more than you hate yourself"
"you're stomach is disgusting"
"you're fat, worthless, useless"
and until this day i struggle with the reality of ever living up to MY reality
of looking in the mirror and seeing what i want to see
and dreading the fact that ill never be
the girl with the pretty smile, so skinny and perky personality
and even those girls
have so much (on the inside) you don't see

they call it depersonalization
dee-person-nile-zaytion
and it means i did the impossible:
found the switch to turn
everything off
so i can do what feels good
and stay away from what feels bad
and never have any real feelings
about any of it

at all.

i hear you carry my name around
in your pocket [instead of on your sleeve]
so convinced that i forgot yours
on the bottom of a glass bottle

[but i could never]

when my mother turned my jeans
inside out to wash
she found your name scribbled
inside, over and over
and over again.