give us this day our daily
emotional breakdown
and forgive us our
blackout binges
as we forgive those who
starve themselves for perfection

and lead us not into
inherited obesity
deliver us from
the mental ward

FOR THERE IS SO
MUCH ******
BREAD IN THIS
HOUSE I CAN'T
TAKE IT ANYMORE

on mlk day i shut my eyes
and see scenes of
squishy white rolls and
pats of margarine

bread
leaden
deadened
feeling in my stomach

i can't eat any
more bread

but here it is
in baskets and
coolers in
toasters and
cupboards

my daily bread
made to sustain me
but turned into
the enemy

deliver me
from risen
yeast in
third degrees

a flour coated
tyranny
mind control
through sesame

swallowing
emotions
down
down
down

quietly settles
until spring
somewhere between
my hope and skin

you can see me
smile and stand
straight and tall
but what you can't see
is this shouldn't be
my body at all

*give us this day
our daily bread
and give us the strength
to chew meat instead

i will bite my tongue until it splits
and use my blood as rouge

i will lift my chin and **** my stomach in
like a statue in the louvre

i am the scent of honey in july
i am a cloud formation in the sky
i am a quiet girl who won't ask why

i am who i (you) want me to be

my body and i,
we do not always
get along.
our relationship,
like that of an old married couple.
an old married couple who got married a little too young,
too unprepared,
too wild.

a couple that's been together way too long,
so long that, now
we could not be with anyone else.
we don't know how to
and anyway, we have the same friends.

my body and i,
we fight a lot.
years upon years of arguments,
betrayals.
too many feelings have been hurt.
i'm not sure if there is even any trust left,
both equally as guilty as the other.


but there's still love there, somewhere,
deep down
and every now and again that goodness will appear,
hidden within the little things;
leaving meals out for each other,
tucking the other into bed after a long day
warm showers.
small moments of love

we stay together.

sometimes i feel like the hours in my days are measured not in units of time, but in calories, minutes to my next meal, and hunger pangs.

there is a room in my mind
in which the clocks are made of mirrors,
detailing the time that it will take for my rib bones to make waves beneath my fingers,
for the corners of my elbows and my shoulders and my wrists to poke out from inside of my skin.

this is where i curl up to hide,
taking part in a ****** up form of transcendental meditation
in which my only mantra is an endless repetition of the reasons why i should not eat.

'you eat to live, you don't live to eat,' i chant,
running my fingers over my flesh and digging into the too-shallow hollows of my bones.

you look at me with laughter in your eyes and tell me that everybody feels like this, but i refuse to believe that everyone's body feels like a prison made of heavy bones and aching joints.

and if everybody feels like i do then, ****, i don't know what to do, because at least if i tell myself that i am all alone then i can pretend that i may someday be someone else with the bones of a sparrow and a tongue that doesn't try to tie itself into knots when it hasn't had enough to taste.

my voice won't stop creaking and i can't remember what i really sound like anymore,
and when you tell me i seem jumpy i have to pinch at my calves to try and stop my hands from shaking.

how am i supposed to get better at this when the only things that make me want to stay alive are the numbers on the scale and the space between my thighs?

when did the
mirror break?

a different angle
for every mood
sharper lines
and harsher truths

jaggedly cut through the glass
same stripes up my sides
personal lightening storm
down my shoulders and thighs

when did the
mirror break?

when did fat stop
being a feeling
and more of just
a state of being?

I think everyone has been self conscious
When it comes to how we view our body
How could we not, with all of the images
That we see online and on the T.V.?

For me, what helped with my view of my bodice
(Though it might seem quite weird)
Is that I could've been greek goddess
Like the statues in which they appeared