I crave emotion like I crave pizza
But I can't have it
I can't let myself devour every ounce of love that comes my way
I can't become dependent on the infamous L word that has broken me
I'm emotionally anorexic,
But sometimes I'm bulimic
Sometimes I'll hunt down my prey, and **** them dry of their love
I'll crave it until I'm stuffed full, and then I'll purge it out
I'll tell them I hate them,
I'll tell them to leave forever
I'll push them away until I'm broken and sad and alone
And anorexic again
Until I'm back where I belong, in the corner of my room
Crying, sobbing, craving affection, but not letting myself have it
Because I don't want to be fat with lust
I can't gain a single pound because if I do
I'll be weak.

Dreaming of walking model thin
Unaware she's bones and skin

She lives in a damaged brain
Drowned from her vomiting pain

Her insecurity torn up her mind
Left her bulimic and mentally blind

Always hugging her toilet beside
Half dead from purging her soul inside

Crying because her ugly reflection
She won't give up until she's perfection

People always tell you that it can get better
What they neglect to tell you is how much worse it gets
Before the better part comes
In every eating disorder novel,
You can always perfectly pinpoint the moment
The protagonists steps over the line of unwell
Into well
This whole 'recovery' deal sounded good enough at first
I get to eat Luna Bars,
I have positive quotes all over the place,
I meditate and do yoga all day,
I somehow reach the a level of Enlightenment
Usually reserved for Buddhist monks
And I don't have to live with a ******* eating disorder anymore
I bought a recovery journal
To talk back to my mental illness
But so far my depression has taken control of the pen
I bought a adult coloring book
To help me de-stress
But I still only want to color a river on my wrists a crimson color

I keep thinking there's a way to be a functional bulimic
Or even better, a functional anorectic
A way that I can be recovered and enlightened and normal
And still dissect each and every meal
As if I was dealing with something ***** and impure
Is it still recovery if I can't fight the voices in my head?
Is if still recovery if I don't even try?
Is it still recovery if I still can't look in the mirror,
want the outside to mirror the chaos inside,
crave sunken cheeks and fallen out hair
That I want to preform a vanishing act right before your eyes
See my skin cave in, bones protruding
I used to think that eating disorders were about beauty
But now I realize they're about pain
And perfection and punishment
And I had to live through it to see that

I seem to never be able to do anything right
And my eating disorder was supposed to remedy that
I was good at self destruction
I was good at sitting at dinner, sipping diet coke
Feeling oh, so superior and smiling brightly
As I said that I'd already eaten
And begged my stomach pains not to betray me then
But now I've failed at having an eating disorder
And at not having an eating disorder
And I can't live anymore in this shade of gray
Coloring everything and ruling my thoughts
I don't want to be in "recovery"
I want to be recovered
Because no one tells you
How you'll cry through every single meal
How you'll see yourself grow in the mirror and not know
What's real and what's not
No one tells you
That an eating disorder never goes away
That you'll never diet again
That trying to lose weight in recovery isn't a good idea

The worst thing about an eating disorder
Is that there is no such thing as abstinence
Recovery is not one decision
It is a decision you will have to make
Every time you find yourself looking down at a plate
And at first, you'll have to pray to the gods
For indulging in the sins of being a human
But someday, maybe someday
Those prayers will go somewhere else

no one knows pain
like
the ones
who
curse their beloveds
and
bleed their heart
dry


like
the ones
who
watch blood bubble up
from wounds
self-made

the ones
who
fill themselves up
just
to empty it all
in a bathroom stall

the ones
who
refuse their meals
and
live for the scale
because
numbers
don't leave

the crying poet
the bleeding cutter
the vomiting bulimic
the starving anorexic
the lost
the empty
the lonely
the unloved

the ones
who
love too much
and
not enough

no one knows pain
like
humans know pain

"Girls shouldn't smoke"
I'm sorry sir, say that again?
Tell that to the 15 year old hispanic girl who sold her virtue under the guidance of the traffic lights to pay off her mother's cancer bills.
Tell that to the wife of a man who
beat
beat
beats her, because some nights she refuses to kneel at his supposed genital altar and confess her sins.
Tell that to the girl who has spent 6 months carving her home address into her forearms,  hoping that her Mum would smell the rust and come and rescue her.
Tell that to the girl who was stolenshackleddruggedsold under the consent of her father who used her body as a paycheck to settle his blackjack debt.
To the lonely girl. The ugly girl. The fat girl. The anorexic girl.  The bulimic girl.  The girl.
"Girls shouldn't smoke."
Tell that to the women who find their prayers in the daily grace that is, nicotine.
Just like men do.

In search of what we do not know
desire what we cannot know
she seeks strange desires inflames.
Strange is the only life I’ve known.

When I was young
I thought for sure
Some girl would marry me
And we’d be happy.

I didn’t know
evils in this world,
tasks of aging disease death.
Under duress I vowed

to be good boy
Most of the time I’m scared.
Life is risky. Everyone
is so treacherous

including myself.
I read somewhere
or someone once told me
poets originate from jesters jokers

hawking insults for king's amusement.
Undress
Before I speak another word
Reveal yourself

Will you swear you’re true faithful devoted
never cheated on a boyfriend
promise to marry me
then run back to you ex?

Take your ******* clothes off
please.
Are you terrified yet?
You are an object

to fiddle with, my exquisite
fetish. Sashay round room
sway hips strut. Sit.
Scoot down. Stay.
Bow your head.

Bend your knees.
Closer, show me
your most intimate
soggy swollen dark

down there. Put it
on the table.
Look into my eyes.
Good Girl.

Between you and me
this doesn’t feel like poetry anymore
hawking insults for king's amusement.
actuality I prefer flip-flop
sometimes tied, other times knotting.

Here’s the routine
She gets ******* at me
And I say *******.
Later I realize how much I need her

Beg forgiveness offer anything
Just to crawl back into her arms.
As far as I can tell
You’re all a bunch of tidy

*******. No one wants to own up.
What is the matter with you?
Accidents happen.
You’re not safe here.

Pendulum swings
ditch gets deeper
trusting what we know not
cannot know.

Intelligence is delicate thread
Other times knotting.
Scoot down
A little bit more for me, please.

“If there is no god than what do you believe in?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you pray to nothing?”
“I don’t pray.”
“What do you do when everything turns horrible, and you’re loved ones are endangered?”
“I make plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“Lunch, dinner.”
“But what if meals are not a consideration? Like if your loved one is anorexic bulimic?”
“I make other plans.”
“What kind of other plans?”
“Plans to make enough money to get free of people like you who ask too many questions.”
“Oh.”

I forgot what I was thinking. Maybe I was thinking about love and loss. It is nearly 3 am. She is long gone. Memory is the biggest **** of them all, lying, betraying, reinventing everything, making passion with anyone, laughing hysterically crying.

The walls harbor my secrets
Pink wall paper
Tucks them away as I sleep
Ballerinas dance in my head
I want to be like them
Graceful, thin, light
My secret scrapes at a dinner plate
Longing for more
But begging for less
I want to be her
The girl in my dreams
Who has perfect pirouettes
But when I wake
My knees meet
Bathroom tiles
Bile spills into
A porcelain bowl
I'm not a ballerina  
I'm a bulimic