my grandmother is dead and it is my fault
turns out the eating disorder doesn't just **** only you.
...
stressful.

i am a skeleton,
with crumbling bones
and an irregular beating heart
on the brink of collapsing.

i am an ice cold silhouette
of a girl with sunken eyes
and shriveled lungs
slowly shrinking inside
my concaved chest.

my hips protrude like shards of glass,
shattering onto the gaps between my thighs,
and my collarbones
are sharper than knives,
slicing and dicing
a year off my life everyday.

i am a rotten corpse,
with worn out ribs
and a cracked spine
disintegrating into nothing but
ash and dust.

this is what death looks like.

i am not my own.

That one girl
everyone wants to be
'oh but she cares about nothing'
'she's so funny and rude haha'
'she's so smart'
'she eats so much but she's not even fat like me?'
'I had such a good time with her'
' she    is    a masterpiece'

Have you ever thought
ripping people apart
isn't always being yourself
it is having to rip yourself apart less

making people laugh with a video I posted about that nerd.
Eating so much you're nauseous, so you figure' tommorow I will almost collapse but I need to lose that weight again, I'm not like those fat girls over there!
getting my grades because I need to be the best, pushing myself every day to make myself feel like 'something'
laughing the empty feeling in your heart away is 'cool', cold-harted is attractive isn't it?

maybe
I ain't
a masterpiece

i'm getting bad again.
i'm kind of vain. i look at my reflection often.
i feel terrible every time.
it kind of reminds me of when my baby teeth would get loose.
i'd push my tooth side to side with my tongue.
there'd be a twinge of pain, but it felt good.
locking myself in my bathroom and pulling my shirt up to see my waist is like that.
it hurts me every time---
constantly reminding me of how i'll never look the way i should,
but i can't stop.

My eyes are not sunlit windows to my own self, rather dimmed and tinted blockades to never give you a full picture. They are not a colourful array of flowers, they are dull and wilting weeds.

My lungs cannot breathe in and smell the roses because they are laced with tar, and not enough oxygen from shallow breathing. They are restricted from fulfilling out their purpose so I can feel 'okay.'

My ears will not listen to the buzzing of bees and the gentle wind- they will, however, listen to the screams between them and confuse help with hate.

My tongue does not taste of honeysuckle and mint, but rather ash and dried blood from tasting my existence. It formulates words laced with too much sleep and too little self care.

My fingertips do not touch as if I am handling the daintiest of flower petals, instead they trace a gravestone between my ribs with a purpose. They tear at my own skin and hair, or at least try to.

Do not devalue my battleground of a body by comparing it to a garden

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 asked her, does it look the same?
she gave me that funny look she gets
whenever i say or do something a little dim
it's a mirror image for a reason she said

in the mirror i see muscles, and strength
hips a little too wide and fleshy
but still muscular,
strength all the way down

but when i reflect on myself,
no mirror necessary
it is never the same

i don't feel as strong as i could
don't look as sharp and sturdy as i could
those fleshy sides, too soft
for a battle-hardened brain
and turbulent thoughts

i need angles, i need straight lines
but there's nothing straight about me
and that's half the problem

and the other half
is that i hate the softness that lingers
but everybody else loves it
and i don't want to be warm and
able to be cuddled

i want hard edges
and nimble, spindly fingers;
when i play my chords
i want my bones to tap the strings

and when sadness sheathes itself within me
i want eyes as dry
as my eczema-bitten hands