I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
first period, first kiss, first full shave
from armpit to ankle.

The teacher pulls me aside--all smiles
and maternal excitement.
She tells me that my test scores put me
in the 98th percentile.

I **** my head, recalling the soft-lead, the
guarded pencil sharpener at the front of the room,
and the bullseye ovals that tested my mind,
my palm sweat, my straining eyes.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
first violent fight with my mother, first homosexual
fantasy, first dressing room meltdown.

The pediatrician pulls me aside--half austerity, half pity.
He tells me that I need three HPV shots, and by the way,
my weight puts me
in the 98th percentile.

My eyes sink back into my face, and the flood doesn’t come
until I am home, curled into my mother’s breast,
wondering how to divide my head into
Focused Student and Focused Starver.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
times tables and long division and calories
in an apple and calories burned in a playground brawl.

I learn to count my success in numbers and my failures
in grams, pounds, inches, threats
of fat camp, images of thick yellow fat
sandwiched between my organs.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
98th percentile and chewing and spitting and growing
and pinching the body that I cannot call my own--
and numbing the brain that matches the magnitude of my fullness.

I am a split-girl, a shame reservoir spilling
over and out and coating my paper with fractions and plans
of calculated disappearance.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
and the teacher’s clock doesn’t stop, and the and the doctor’s scale doesn’t pause
to make room for my magnitude.

I just want to let it all go. I'm done playing it safe. Free falling sounds like my next move. Cutting, vomiting, suicide. It's all becoming one, no boundaries from one to the next.
I hear others laughing and only cringe. Jealousy overtakes me. I can't remember what truly laughing feels like, what a real smile on my lips tastes like. What is happiness? Even just being okay sounds good at this point. Jealousy shoots through my veins as I think about the girls who don't take the blade to their skin, the girls who don't feel the need to starve themselves or ***** after eating, the girls who don't feel that death is their only option.
Being to this point where I don't care anymore is kind of nice, though. No more tears, no more emotions. Just the cold blade against my exposed skin.
People say I am getting out of hand. That's not true. It's just I don't care anymore. This world and the things inside of it mean nothing to me. By summer, I will be skinny. But keeping my grades up gets harder each week. I don't know how much longer I can hold up, staying in this world. The pain is so great.
But I keep forgetting that I don't care. I'm done here. Who needs life anyway? Who needs me? Death is the final option. My final option.

When I say “I don’t think I have a problem”
What I really mean is that
Some people have to break themselves
To prove that they are worth
reconstruction.

At night my emotions sit on top of me
like bricks
The monster in my head reads a bedtime story about
A fat girl who does not eat.
It is a tragedy disguised as a triumphant heroine’s quest,
read in the voice of my mother.
I do not remember what the girl is looking for,
but she keeps going, keeps digging her nails into the Earth,
searching for the promises that her monster makes.
She finds bits of debris that she cannot name
and fungus and grains
of sand that cut like sea-glass.
The monster sighs,
“Just keep digging and you will find victory,
happiness, safety, and love.”
The girl becomes confused
and falls into the dug-up ground like a limp fish,
she cannot breathe underground,
and she ***** dirt like air.

Breath in the madhouse
freezes in air like ice.
The drip drip drip
of life
turns inward like a hooked nose.
It is time for the melting,
it is time to have your own breath caught
and put away neatly like mugs in a cabinet,
away from the lips,
away from the throat
with its noble muscles.
It is time to be saved
from your own spent mouth
that bleeds ***** and lies, lies, lies.

I stare down my straw.
It’s floating in a cold beige soup
that I must drink
like some perverse mother’s milk.
Two table wardens pretend not to stare.
But they do stare
in quick flashes and sideways glares--
they’re supposed to be my mothers
teaching me how to get fat again.
The clock ticks forward
its hands make puncture wounds in my eyes
that mimic mouths.
I shift in my chair and my thighs slide
in my own anxious mess.
One warden opens her mouth to speak
but a cough comes out instead.
I do not take a sip
and the clock yawns.
I do not take a sip
and the clock gives up its patient dance and
the warden who coughed pours the contents of my glass
down the drain.
I ask if she could pour me out too--
*****-by *****.
She rolls her eyes at the spread of my thighs
that beg to be fed--
I do not drink.

Women like me
tear their hair out
over things like this--
calories in peanut butter
the bit that’s left on the spreading knife
after your sandwich is stacked and sliced in four neat triangles
(you already dipped the corners in bleach)
Blood in your toilet bowl
from vomiting too passionately
your esophagus is eating itself up
(you don’t go to the doctor, you don’t even tell your mother)
A clogged kitchen sink
the disposal blades wound tightly
with the spaghetti you poured out like tight little worms
(you blame your roommates for the mess)
And the quiet ache of every muscle
that refuses to relax
when all you want to do is sleep.

Two anxious women sit across the table from each other
interrupted by two dishes of food,
two glasses of water,
and six utensils resting on paper napkins.
One thinks to herself,
“Is this sickness?”
the other,
“I am the sickest.”
The sick picks up her fork and licks the tines,
preparing it for a bite that will never arrive in her mouth.
The sickest folds her arms across her chest
and pushes her dish away with her eyes
and they sit in silence
with loud eyes and trembling hands
willing their fear to disappear.

Today I woke up with holes in my hand,
the stigmata of a failed human
who tried to starve her way to divinity.

These hollows are heaven’s rejection letters
spelled out in limp flesh
and dried blood.

When my mouth begs for water,
these hands cannot scoop up a single drop
from life’s grand wells.
And anyway, my mouth was sewn up long ago.

I hold both hands outward, towards the light.
They do not warm, they only burn,
and anyway, I cannot see the light
through frosted eyes.

My fingers hang from their spreading base
and cannot find the strength to fold
along their stiff hinges.
And anyway, my skin tightens like ice.

All that remains is fractured bone
and sea-green veins
that spread like spider’s legs
strong on a broken loom.

I cannot create if I cannot breath,
the pen’s ink separates like stolen air
drawn through a sieve.

Creation breeds life, endless drops of life,
but I shut that door on myself
and it’s still jammed in its latch.

The oxygen around me hides in small corners
and speaks in a whisper,
“you do not tempt me.”

Blank pages read like foreign print
and speak in ancient tongues,
unheard and unread.

The butcher in me
tears muscle from bone.
I say to my father,
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“This” being a project of blood and sweat
like the science fair project I stayed up all night to perfect,
do you remember?
But I am not a vinegar volcano
or a lopsided solar system
strong on needle-thin wire.
I am an animal skinning itself
in the face of a bear--
but the bear is invisible.
“Is it really even there?”
I ask.
You do not know the answer,
you do not even hear the question
because of the glass in my throat
and the powder on my tongue.
So I claw myself open and out
and you close your eyes and mouth
and the maybe-maybe not bear remains
as my bones break under the weight of fear.
“I wish things were different,”
I say
as the sun closes its doors
and my shadow sinks into the earth.