She has a story
She was once 300 pounds.
She was never worried until someone called her fat.
She brushed it off at first , but the comments kept coming and the people kept judging until she cried her self to sleep at night because no one took the time to know her and see her beauty within.
Instead they visualized her imperfect body onto a piece of paper to pass around the class.
She was so embarrassed,
She ran home from school that and never left her room.
She slept through the weekend
She began passing by mirrors so quickly she didn't want to see the drawing that was passed around and ridiculed by and abundance of people.
The scale became her best friend, but her worst enemy
The number on the scale dropped just as her body did each time she forced food from her body.
The mind that once was so beautiful became a math class for calories
You couldn't get a bigger number or the answer would be wrong
She consumed less and less each day
Hating the feeling
She hated feeling this way but she hated being laughed at more
She was congratulated on the drop of pants sizes
No one realized her drop food consumption.
The loss of weight became her addiction
The drawing wasn't being passed around anymore.
She wasn't a fat girl in huge clothes
She wasn't a walking diabetic waiting to be diagnosed
She wasn't a "muffin top" people would make fun of
But it didn't stop for her
The calculator in her head felt more familiar and more supportive than her family
Her sickness soon became all she had
She kept that drawing and replaced it for the food that would never touch her lips
But she never realized that her body didn't look like a giant marshmallow
It was a work of art that had way more beautiful detail.
She was just too busy counting to see the canvas where it all lied.

I know whose toes
Peek out below:
Beneath their nose,
Under lips,
Lower than their waist and hips;
Past their knees and their shins-
Toes they’ll use to count to ten.
Better yet,
With our twins,
They’ll count to twenty to begin,
Then move to forty without linger,
Counting on each other’s fingers.
Toes and fingers, fingers and toes,
Twenty wigglers they’ve come to know,
With twenty fingers to catch and throw.
For now we’ll rhyme toes off to market,
And play Pat-a-Cake
With Ophelia and Brigid.

Paper planes, falling
down,
down—
down.

Into the starlight,
that is upside down.

In my heart, it’s beating
one,
two—
three.

The street lights are blinking,
in the upside, down.
My world is red, it's shadows.
Raven black.
The treetops are swaying,
in the upside, down.

Black on red, it’s pattern
tartan plaid.
Who’ll be my lover?
In the upside, down.

As above, so below.
Touch me until my bones
grow cold.

I am a dream so, shut your eyes.
And hold me close—
in the upside, down.

Till the music stops playing,
and the sheet music
is scrolled across my lungs.

As though nothing could fail
in the upside, down.

Reverse the math, also a graph would do
Days to death, well a laugh may suffice
There is no room for two
Never does it come twice

Scheduled journey, depends as you chase
Rather prepare to embrace
Explore or waste
Before you taste
Care, as the Lord calls
And stare while the curtain falls

One two
Well look at you
Three Four
Always begging for more
Five six
But I'm all out of tricks
Seven Eight
So full of hate
Nine Ten
So I just wont breathe again

She
Counts
Her shots
With sharpie
On her arm, tick tick
The alcohol swirls inside her.
It can **** you, you know that, if you keep taking them.

She
Waits,
Ignores.
Breathes in smoke.
The substances coursing
Through her veins. The two, a yin-yang
Teasing each other, now giving balance to her world.

Feel
Your
Burning
Cheeks flushing
Under the dim lights.
Are you still counting them tonight?
What are you trying to escape from? Him? Or yourself?

Tear, tear, tear.
Spend classes tearing paper into tiny bits.
Why do I do it?
(Tearing until my fingers hurt.)

Count, count, count.
Almost run into people every few minutes.
Why do I do it?
(Count my bones whenever I can.)
(Count the steps on the stairs when I ran.)
(Count the steps I take and how many breaths I draw.)

I am aware that everyone sees me,
counting and tearing and restarting,
and I don't want to stop even though it's not with a degree of panic.

Check, check, check.
Check so many things again and again,
but not the things that are really important.
(Check that everything's not changing or if it is.)

You ever try counting the stars?
I can't ever get the same number twice
They keep changing on me
I'm not even entirely sure what a star is
Well my body knows,
It's my mind that has forgot