I used to **** my stomach in,
Till my lungs would ache and split,
Then I learned to pull my muscles up,
And I'd find a better fit.

I learnt from magazines,
and TV shows,
The things that told us,
To always shrink, to never grow.

I learnt from my mother and my sister,
Who would sit and pinch their thighs,
With a sigh and a shriek,
About needing to go down a size.

I became obsessed,
But not with food, wine, or shopping,
My obsession was with the fat under my skin,
Growing fast and never stopping.

I became obsessed with numbers,
Numbers even though I hated math,
People telling me to stop, to eat,
The voices in my head would clash.

I feared that I would grow,
But also I would shrink,
Fingers trailing gaunt on skin,
My madness slipping from the brink.

I feared that I wouldn't wake up,
The next morning, the next week,
But I couldn't stop myself from finding,
The skinny I'd always seek.

I'm not fat, I know I'm not,
And I know weight does not define me,
But I see the bone, I strive to see it more,
Without bone what would I be?

From branches of lilac, the roots of the apple tree, swinging on the tire swing.
Always a square peg in a round hole in the eyes of my papa,
An artist in the eyes of my mom.
An adventurer in the eyes of my grandpa, he’s been navigating the universe for me
all the way from the stars when the cancer took him years too early.
A free spirit  in the eyes of my Gramma, picking apples from the trees and climbing too high.

My GG called me beautiful girl,
then a more beautiful version of herself after the brain stent went in and she forgot how beautiful she was when she was my age and could only tell the same story about the milkshakes in her prom dress.
It’s one of my favorites.
My grandma Wheeze grabbing my cheeks from her walker while lizards crawled outside her house slightly further in from the gulf.
Gumbo and rice in the kitchen, a separate pan of buttered shrimp she’d sneak to me while my siblings were not looking.

The whisk in the drawer where it sits unused since that winter sunday morning walk home.
The tiny clock on the shelf, nostalgic off tempo click, Minnesota evenings. It broke on the move.
Cat Stevens on the ride across the state and into Wisconsin, Bob Dylan on my papa’s guitar in the hot kitchen and the broken clock on the counter.
Gnocchi for dinner, cafe au lait on the porch.
“Basta” mom would say, yet never enough.
An early caffeine addiction.

A tabby cat and an unfortunate end in a risky fight with a squirrel, “Basta”, but never enough.
A calico replacement, a companion to the present.  
Protector of the house when we are away,
Mardi Gras every year, beads adorning the Christmas tree, shifting to the epiphany.
God protecting the house.
French Quarters and VooDoo protecting everything else.
In my blood, I have both.

Somewhere over the rainbow still makes me cry,
Death doesn’t make me cry, only the fact that someone is dead.
Sometimes I don’t see shooting stars and I don’t see the fireflies and I feel abandoned by them.
A broken white chair in the corner of the yard from a night of not feeling enough, “Basta.”


Tire swing no longer on the apple tree, run down trampoline, a broken leg, I never came out to my
GG, she was on her deathbed when I went to tell her and I couldn’t do it.
My grandpa was on his when I feared death last. I’m sorry.

Anxiety coupled with success doesn’t feel like much, maybe that’s why I drink too much coffee.
I’ve gotten better, a family of champs. Loud, passionate, winners.
I’ve stopped living for someone else, I live for myself.
I transcend. I’m Mr. Brightside, I am that chick at that concert, hand on the barricade.
I am a future world changer, I am a drum major, I am an artist, I am love.
I have love.
I am in love.
In this cage some songs are born, I am Bukowski before the alcohol.
I am inside the inkwell of Poe.
I am the verse rewriting itself in Whitman's lines.
I am Emerson when I say good-bye to this proud world.
I am the dew on the edges of Walden within the pages of Thoreau.

I am a poet and every poet all at once.
I am an artist and every artist all at once.
I am positive film, I still keep the negatives, I still develop.


I am a prism, I am a bearer of light.
I am everything.
I am nothing.
I am.

My depression is like when you get invited to a party, but you don't wanna go but you know you should go
My depression is like when you try to get out of bed, but you just can't
My depression is like that aching pain in your chest when you feel bad for blowing someone off, but you can't help it
My depression is like that distant old friend who showed up to the party without an invite
My depression keeps me from doing the things I love most

i detest the notion that you must love yourself before you can have someone else love you, as ideal as that may be it’s easier said than done. there is nothing wrong falling in love with someone while learning to love yourself in the process. he taught me how to love myself, he showed me that i was beautiful and i was worthy of a love like his, i deserve to be happy. he taught me that i have a kind forgiving heart and i’m not quite as damaged as i believed, although i’m convinced he’s cured me. his love showed me that everything i deemed imperfect about my form was stunning and with every kiss he pressed to my body i believed him more and more. months have dripped by and falling for him was easy, it was like going home and along the way i found myself and she is beautiful and worthy. i have found god again and i have blossomed. i am whole and always have been.

Feeling disconnected,
from the ones who surround you each day, is sadder and scarier than being lost in the darkest of caves.

I look one way only to be turned away,
someone else is more important right now.
I search for comfort from others
who I've grown close to with time.

It's not the same.

It all becomes a very depressing pattern,
what happens over the time it takes
for you to become, locked out.
Until only special people can help.