"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
-Maya Angelou

My soul is a sweetie:
She’s a cute but ****,
with an infectious smile,
an enchanting personality.
She wears dark colors,
slightly goth makeup,
and thick-rimmed glasses.
She likes candles, tea,
sweaters, and cannabis,
and goes on long walks
in the woods by starlight.
She’s cool and confident,
outgoing and fun,
and as beautiful as
a moonrise reflected
off of a frozen lake.

She’s me.
But I am not her.
She’s the me inside
of the me inside of me.

She cries when my mind
grapples with the bounds
of the mental illness
that gives her life.
She screams in pain
when my mind tries
to rationalize her
and explain her away.
And she glows with joy
whenever I try
to grow closer to her.
She’s the part of me
I never asked for,
whose existence hurts
like a deep burn,
but nonetheless makes
me truly be myself.

It’s mysterious the way the mind works
How your self worth can just
Wither away
And how your will just falters

How looking in the mirror
Can become a thing of fear
And you pick out each
Little flaw, each imperfection
When you can’t see your ribs
- You can never see your ribs -

How helping yourself
Turns into guilt
And how everyone stares
And picks you apart
And judges

But that is not you
It is your mind
Pulling away at you
Blurring the truth
As it rots

There are red makes etched imto my flesh,
and I am finding it harder to breathe afresh
underneath the layers of painful bandages.
Still my ribs ache and sting when they push through my skin, but can't push through that final layer hiding me.
I can't comcentrate on the lessons,
the words are a blur and the faces are obscured by tears,
but I will not stop because the pain of facing my body is even worse.

Everyone is shouting in my ears,
pulling them and stretching them to ensure I really hear,
but it goes in that ear and out the other.
If this means broken ribs and sickness,
then so be it,
because still the pain will be worth it.

He wished to be one,
but stronger than he, the laws
governing his body.

I haven’t weighed myself in weeks. I have this incessant itch inside of me longing to know what numbers I ring up to be. But everyday I hear another gnawing voice say,
“You are not a number, you are a person. A number does not define you. What defines you is your kindness, your efforts, the way you live your life.”

But what happens when the way I’ve been living my life for the past year and a half has been nothing BUT numbers and scales and nutrition labels and dysmorphia. What happens when my efforts have only been reduced to reducing myself? What happens when kindness overflows towards others, but I cannot even look in the mirror and say “I love you.” What happens when you are completely consumed by something that refuses to let you consume?
-Does the tunnel end soon?

I know something's wrong
So I try to lose myself in song

It starts when I compare
My shape to the one over there
And I sit and despair

Whenever I hear someone's size
I look and memorize
So later I can beat myself up
For not looking like that in someone's eyes

I hate clothes shopping
Because my clothes are never in the front half of the rack
At home I always end up crying

When I got sick
And my stomach ached
They said to just make myself puke


I froze
I got scared
Because if I did, and I learned how
Who knows how many times
I would use that knowledge

let me tell you how it all happened

they'll tend to tell you bullies caused it
or that everyone has the same experience
and it starts because
other people
forced it to

but what i have to tell you
is that i did it to
myself
i'm a turncoat
to my own flesh

i would look in the mirror and see
a gut
and suddenly
that was all i could see

no matter if my calves were toned
or my arms were sticks
i saw that gut
or my
curdled thighs
and that was all

so i'd say i wasn't hungry
or i'd "sleep" through a meal
and i'd work extra hard at practice
pretend i wasn't always run down

and even if i'd pass out
or struggle to stay awake
i'd pretend like it was sleep
i was depriving myself of sleep

and you know that cycle
in every anorexic girl's story
where her body bloats before it thins
because it's trying to protect her

i went harder in that stage
so i could lose the weight that made me a 2
instead of 00
and i would cry myself to sleep
because i was in pain
mental
and physical

but i couldn't stop the
taunts
i gave
myself

my dad would tell my friends
to make sure i would
eat
but i never listened

and now i look back
and see my former shell-f
a self that had no self
a self that was only

a shell

a turncoat

anorexic

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
They told her
As she dug her fingernails deep into her skin
Like her flesh was made out of playdoh
In the uncautious hands of a toddler.
Her life balances dangerously on her tongue,
steadied only by a love she will not swallow
For she has been told
“Too much sugar will rot your teeth.”

i do good for my body,
so why does it hate me?
why, when i step on that scale
do i die a little inside?
why why why
why can't i ever be content
with how i look or feel.
man, i am tired;
i am tired of waiting
to be good enough for myself.
man, i am sick;
i am sick of crying
over the slight belly fat
and the cellulite
i graciously received from
my mother.
the curves i have been told
i am blessed to have,
feel like a curse.
the small, teardrop-shaped *******;
the baby-faced knee caps;
the hips shaped like
the body of a violin;
the thighs that touch,
that rub against one another
when i run, dance, walk
you name it
****.
****, is right.
body dysmorphia.
do you understand what i am saying now?
do you UNDERSTAND?
do you get the pain
of looking into a mirror
and seeing a disgusting creature.
like looking through a glass
of water and seeing
a morphed, unsightly image.
the skin i am in,
this skin stained with imperfections:
stretch marks, scars, moles, freckles,
skin tags, dimples, fat, sun damage;
the marks of love and growth
and progress and puberty.
i cannot shed this skin.
i need to learn
to live with this skin.
it is the skin i am in.