i.
I am a short, stout girl in the corner of the room
my arms were much smaller last June
I search for reasons not to relapse in shadows like corpses
they're all dead, anyway
because my roommate is obsessed with the gym
because my best friend is obsessed with fad diets
even though I have at least fifty pounds on both of them.

ii.
I am forcing myself to use recovery speech
because it gets me through therapy more effectively
"fat is not a feeling"
my mind scoffs as I speak
every word copied and pasted from someone else's recovery blog
but my recovery is not avocados and yoga mats and veganism
it is complicated
it is painful.

iii.
I am the small, queer girl in the pew at church
so nervous as the skin around my nails begin to bleed
the scar on my ******* says "*******"
to American evangelicalism
and yet my lips still sing the loudest
the product of the "moral right"
how lovely it is to pretend to belong.

iv.
I am acting like my body knows what it is doing
as I reach for the hands of my most recent lover
I drop hints to my Republican parents
church members
best friend
but still,
I am struggling.

v.
I am trying to undo the codification of bulimia
from the fibers of my bones
I relearn daily
spun like wool through the continuum
of someone else's broken body
I become a success story
for some
but for others
I am still fat.

vi.
I want my eating disorder
my abuse
my queerness
to look normal
to be typical
some say
assimilation is liberation
so why do I still feel
chained and bound?
why am I still
unfinished?

bah bah black sheep... ok... the black sheep knuckled you to sleep
and now you’re asking for directions using a map and not a satellite navigation
across europe, esp. tremendous in germany near dortmund
and the rhine cities getting confused... but that’s no reason
to drive with ease from new jersey to florida with a glum pickers' pride
en route... i can play the ‘i spy with my little’ game into midnight passing me and spare myself inventive optics -
like shadow like hallucination in consistency, both flimsy,
i can recognise the real filth from packaged recyclables
from the orient.
well there’s that and there’s old russell the schizoid affective
outside tesco drinking a bottle of old speckled hen
and talking about snowfalls... 3 / 4 years ago last time i spotted
saint clause... i slipped and imagined myself breaking a knee...
didn’t happen... what happened was was a clearer truth:
why this fake image stimulant... i cant’ watch the stars
but have to subconsciously watch candy crush?
it’s ****! i want the days within the insignia of war,
i don’t want my subconscious patented with candy crush,
i want the stars to remain... better an autocrat than a technocrat...
at least a human face... adolf touchy-feely,
here we go...
i imagine all those rivers of heraclitus concerning a coordinate
known as a waterfall... and post-humous exactness expressing peace...
then i spot picasso on the roof outside my bedroom window...
i support his elevation through evangelicalism from halo to angels wings...
you know what the three wise babylonians said...
you scared them to egypt you idiot announcing reign of the ditto,
you scared them them with myrrh, melchior you’re already close to malachi,
that will do... look at it... it’s babylonian already...
it’s a babylon of orthodox christianity (greek / russian), catholicism,
protestantism, baptists, pantheists and other offshoots
like being mormon!
well you can never make an omelette by the dozen involved
without asking the thirteenth egg: chicken or egg first? crucifix?! oh.