Unfortunately
Some scars
Are
Not
always
Seen
By
The
Naked eye
Or glasses.

I know two siblings; I'm closer to one
The younger is more forgiving
You can't have your cake and eat it too
So I chose the older; seems more loving
She comes by at least three times a day
Sometimes stays for hours or more
I love and admire her, she gives me control
Myself I despise down to the core
People tell me she's not one to call friend
But I thrive on every time she checks in
She urges me to surrender at every turn
I'm fighting a battle I don't want to win

Stickers and wires riddle your chest
Complicatedly tethering you to your room,
Where you watch the morning news in socks,
Pairs of socks and blankets
That can’t stop the coldness of the tile
From slipping through your skin,
Goosebumps, the cold grabs hold of your leg
And pulls it out from under you.
Cold, when the needle enters your skin,
Even colder, waiting for someone,
Clean sheets but not like home
Fresh pressed and sanitized,
Tube up your nose, down your throat,
A get well soon card watches.

If I sketched an angel without wings
would you be able to tell
she’s an angel?
The sky behind her would be pale yellow
The world below, gray
Like the color of the outline of her frame
I’d describe her face as angelic
Which is supposed to give it away
But maybe you’d only say she looks nice

I don’t know how to dance
Never learned
Never thought I’d need to know
So you led me, gently, at first
We started out simple and easy
like a bite of sponge cake
A one and two and three and four and
It felt good to glide across the linoleum floor
Light as a feather
Like I weighed nothing at all

tell me to stop getting distracted
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop binge eating
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop overthinking things
because it's so easy for you to say that
tell me to stop getting scared
because it's so easy for you to say that
it's like you think i want to be like this
if i could stop then i would
it's harder than it seems
when i think about the word stop
the only think i can think about it to stop living

I ate away the ****.
I ate away the abuse.
I ate away the depression.
I tried eating away the pain.
But now I can't keep eating.
Because of the words that you threw around like it was nothing.
Fat. Disgusting. Ugly.
I'm not sad and beautiful.
Like the girls you write the stories about.
Because my self harm was my comfort food.
The way your self harm was the lack of food.
I punished my body everytime I climbed stairs.
And I knew I deserved it.
Except now at my lowest,
I can't afford a salad.
Or a donut to find the seratonin that I crave.
And the only thing I want to eat now
Is a bullet.

She was hungry, peaked and breathless
“I’m starving”
Words meant to manipulate
I capitulate
“How big is the salami?”
“Roll it up with cream cheese, have you ever
Had it like that?”
I go to the kitchen
And carefully, lovingly roll the soft, silky cheese
Into slices of bologna.  
This was not salami.  
“What the **** is this?  This is not salami.”
“I’m sorry, baby.  I didn’t realize it until...”
“*******, you’re stupid.  Get out of my face.
Now two pieces
Of bologna have gone to waste”.
I look over gently, “I’m sorry”.
She says “shut up, don’t touch me, how could you?” with venom
I was guilty of not knowing my lunch meats
And wasting the precious cheeses within them.

my body weighs more than a number.

my body is the weight of the sea -- the stars, moon, and galaxies dancing around the corners of my soul.

my body weighs more than a number.

my worth is the airplane rides, deep conversations, dancing, laughing, crying.

my body weighs more than a number.

my legs have taken me across worlds of sea, land, and mountains.
my arms have hugged. my lips have kissed. my hair has been washed in salt water and seaweed. my fingers have playing white and black keys, painted, created and traced the corners of his palms.

my body weighs more than a number.
my value weighs more than a number.
I am m o r e than a number.