I've been battling my empty heart
by leaving my stomach clean
Honestly it's feeling easier
than it's almost ever been

Happiness: The ultimate goal, right?
We all want to be happy
We all want to feel fulfilled.

We see pictures of smiling, skinny bodies
and we know what happiness looks like.
It looks like thin faces
frail arms
tiny legs
concave stomachs

The first step to being happy is
looking
the part.

She talks like ‘finally got up to 103’ and
I’m like, c’mon, girl, keep eating, you aren’t as healthy as you should be, and
He talks like ‘back 60
pounds ago’ and
I’m like, dude, rad, just keep eating healthy.
But like,
There’s this sick sort of jealousy.
I mean, she’s guilty when she’s too small for her jeans while
I’m guilty when I wish it was me
See, sometimes I try starving,
Just to see…

I don’t have an eating disorder:
Ask my mother,
I just have a small appetite.
And I don’t need therapy,
Because it’s scratches not scars that cover me.
I’m not a cutter but pass me a lighter—
I don’t like razors but I do play with fire,
And I’d like to burn these thoughts and watch the smoke drift
Higher
Higher
Higher,
Until the sky opens up and swallows me,
Like I swallow more pills than necessary.
The painkillers keep my nerves numb and dead,
But do nothing for the bundles of nerves in my head.
I want to be empty.
I want to be emptier physically
Than the emptiness of my mentality.
I’m starving
In my head,
Because physically I’m doing just fine.
I’m walking the line
Between average
And a little less
And a little less
And a little less.
I’m misery at its best because
Its best is nothing, and I
Am nothing.
(Or at least,
I wish to be.)

Ignore the size of the portion
This is healthy
Ignorance is bliss

Cut and slice
Count the pieces the knife and fork create
Slip into old routine

Eat one cookie... eat five
Who cares?
You're this shape already

Turn the shower on twice a day
Watch it all wash down the drain
Hate the way you adore the acidic burn

Count the numbers
You're not wiz at college algebra
But you can count the calories, pounds, and body mass

Watch the flab vanish into sweat
Run for two hours a day
Do crunches until your innards explode

Faint in the shower
Forget what time of day it is
Sleep is now nonexistent due to hunger

Ward off the war within your belly
Empty is clean
Pain is beauty

Your teeth are rotting
From the lies about your meal plan
And your citric stomach

Compare yourself to all of them
Observe the way they enjoy it
They love the freedom of cuisine

Your mouth is watering
It's a good thing food cannot travel
Through a television screen

Cry at family gatherings and holidays
Your mother's eyes glaring across the table
While you wish you could vacate the skin you're in

Uncertainty is your best friend at this point
Indecisiveness and hatred are nothing out of the ordinary
Your mere thoughts are a whirlwind

And there's nothing romantic about it

I wanted long , thin legs
A skinny waist
And collar bones that stick out.
I wanted to be pretty.

But what I didn't want
Was the price.
Skippy meals,
Using constant excuses.

I wanted to be perfect
But instead,
I was lifeless
and years later I still pay.

I soon reached my goal,
But was the price I paid worth it?

Fifty years ago this week
Sgt. Pepper he began to speak
Hidden deep just like a motley fool
Inside four boys from Liverpool

It took four lads as inspiration
to bring hope to a crying nation
After November's assassination
They grabbed us...we held on

John, Paul, George and Ringo
on Ed's Sunday Show
We sat back and watched them go
They grabbed us...we held on

They came and held the hand
Of a still in mourning land
A little skiffle band
They grabbed us...we held on

We were brought back from the dark side
We were on a rock and roll ride
With four young lads from Mersey Side
They grabbed us...we held on

They grabbed our hearts and souls
They expanded musics goals
They all had different roles
they grabbed us...we held on

In times...things were changing
The band was re-arranging
No more tours were staging
They grabbed us...we held on

Soon, they all went on their way
McCartney sang "Another Day"
John, he had a lot to say
George and Ringo...just played on

John was shot at decades start
It shocked the world and broke apart
Those who held him in our heart
The Beatles were no more

George died too, all things must pass
He always had a silent class
The parts aren't greater than the mass
The Beatles were no more

Is there anyone out in the land
Who will come and take us by the hand
I hope that you will understand
They grabbed us...we held on

I was sixteen years old when I effectively vomited for the first time. As my mother’s pasta and the words of a boy I thought loved me flooded my esophagus I grasped the cold sides of the toilet seat with sweaty palms and bitten down fingernails. I looked into the mirror as if my reflection had finally transformed into a wax figure I had been burning at for years and I knew it would never go back to its original form. I’d seen that look before, in girls wiping their lips in high school bathrooms, girls who wore baggy clothes and flinched when boys playfully poked at their stomachs, girls who put rocks in their pockets before being weighed at doctors’ appointments and covered up bruises over fragile bones with whatever makeup they could find in their mother’s drawer. I sit in health class as the teacher speaks of the dangers of eating disorders from a third person point of view and it seems as if the only sound anyone is hearing is the growling coming from my empty stomach. I stand up from a lunch table in the cafeteria and freeze at the words of a girl telling me I’ve gotten as skinny as my three month prematurely born best friend. I walk through the front door and immediately remove every piece of clothing that might weigh even an ounce and I step onto the scale with hopes of seeing my importance rise as the numbers fall but no one ever told me that I am worth so much more than 96 pounds.

I am nineteen years old and I am no longer drowned in a sea of panic when my father asks me what I've had to eat today. When my boyfriend glides his hands under my shirt and over the top of my waistline my head is not consumed by the thought that my stomach is not flat enough for his liking. I do not sit in class and think about the flesh of my thighs bulging from the holes in my jeans that a boy once told me looked like tumors under my skin.
Okay, there are days when the only one who knows I am my own worst enemy is the mirror and okay, I still politely insist that the lights be turned off before I let him touch me with satin fingertips and okay, I still have a way of instantaneously counting calories in my head the same way I counted on myself to stop years ago but
I only weighed myself once today.

This isn't a date in history
This isn't a place of residence
18
92

The chart is engraved into my memory
Preventing my transition into elephant
18
92

The yellow muck underneath my skin
The index on which my life depends
18
92

The ribs I traced during sleepless nights
The weight at which I shriveled up inside
18
92

The numbers I crossed my heart with
The numbers I wished to die with
18
92

The moments when I drowned myself
Flamed the courage to help myself

I.
See these marks on my fingers?
They're not from my bark
They're my bite's fight with dinner

II.
These cuts and bruises
Have calcium to blame
And the food my body refuses

III.
The scars on my middle and pointer
Remind me of the acid burn
That made my image so much lovelier