Discretely
Following
Activities posted
Dialing your numbers
Blocking my own
Hanging up
Just after you answer
Long enough
To hear your voice
The memories flood
Of all the times
You’d greet me fondly
Back when you treasured
My existence
This light and energy
Which has dissipated
Since you’ve gone
Lost in the translation
Of goodbyes
The idea
That you never
Want to see me again
Not of any fault of my own
But because you’ve found another
Someone
Who makes you shine
Without trying
As oppose to someone
Who spent every minute
Exhausting options
Trying to make you smile
As I reach your door
I realize
I can’t bring my finger
To your bell
Leaving you content
Hoping someday
You see what I was worth
Call me
Without hanging up
Just to talk
Explain
What went wrong
Find the cure
To the poison that filled us
The one
That caused us to separate
Melting us into nothingness
Leaving me searching
For the pieces
To begin to repair us
Without your help
Or awareness
No permission needed
Because I am convinced
That once you see the big picture
You will come back
And thank me
For all of the effort...

I seem to reward myself for bad behavior, and while others don’t understand it to be bad, it gnaws at me. Grows like a tumor, because even if an accident, or happenstance, I still seem to shrink, but not before my body rebels and solidifies into making me gorge on fiber until I lose the nerve and rush to other means. I’m not supposed to do it on purpose, not like Lori, and I hold myself back, convinced that my weight-loss is not an extension of my personality, but I cant help but admit I’m obsessed with the scale. Obsessed with an anti-me. My therapist doesn’t see the pattern, and maybe she is right, but I am too busy worrying about becoming obsessed that I have become obsessed with being obsessed. A hundred and seven pounds, and I have had to seriously fight to control myself not to create harm, and when my stomach doesn’t seem to want to let go of food after days, I can’t help but go to my medicine cabinet, find the laxative, and let my body suffer in such an embarassing way.

I watched Lori do it, and I swore I wouldn’t. But I am, even if for the sake of relief, of release. And I swear it’s not a habit, but that means nothing come every Monday when I have to be the beacon at the group weigh-ins, to mark some kind of false sense of hope for others. They call me an inspiration, and even if not intentional, I feel like I have been cheating.

My grandfather asks me every time I tell him about my weight-loss, “Are you sure you aren’t hurting yourself?” and I am reminded of the decades of humiliation he wrought upon me due to my obesity. What right does he have to ask of harm when he helped drive me to four hundred and more pounds? Maybe this is punishment for all the times his words cut deep enough to make me keep eating in anguish. Maybe I’ll just keep losing long after I hit my goal until there is nothing left– not even dust to be carried along with the wind.

Thoughts like that make me worry that it has evolved from lifestyle change to pure, unadulterated obsession. The kind I have seen time and time again.

My family has always been riddled with addicts.

maybe i have died
and that is why he is not responding anymore

It drips off your skin
like a cascading river
threatening to drown all
who come near.
It’s taste is sweet.
Too sweet.
Too tempting.
It draws me closer
when close is the last place
I should be.
It calls my name
when the wind’s too loud
and the night’s too long
and my body shakes
as I see what has been just out of my reach
for so long.
My name on your tongue
sends shivers down the spine;
unraveling me into the
coward
mess
liar
I knew I was all along.
Though as my thoughts run rampant
it continues to drip off the skin
and it doesn’t stop.
It won’t stop.

I sat behind the bars made out of iron
A small room with no ventilation
They covered my vision
So I will be blind for a reason

I’m stuck in a jail with one cell
At the bottom of her heart
Where it simulates hell
And they will cut me apart

I was brainwashed by the leader
And forced me to love her
She used her beauty and body
To hypnotize me
So I serve her while I’m hungry and thirsty

I am the Prisoner Of Her Love
A place where no light glows
The place I will be stuck there forever
The place for my funeral
Stuck in that one special room
The place where I live until doom

II. Mysophobia

Sure,
now,
when I look to the right
of my bedroom door,
I see the light-switch for what it is--
a light-switch,
inanimate,
with absolutely no potential
to cause me harm.

But, at eleven years old,
a light-switch
is a breeding ground
for plethoras of
girl-hungry microorganisms
waiting to infect me
with some vile, incurable illness.

In the sixth grade,
I wash my hands the
same way I would
eventually come to write poetry--
obsessively,
with reckless abandon
and, most importantly,
with the insatiable desire to escape.

I flick on the light-switch and
I wash my hands

I touch the door handle and
I wash my hands

I just come out of the shower and
I wash my hands

I learn what a ******* is at school one day and
I wash my hands

I think of *** for the first time
(I enjoy it)
and
I wash my hands
(I regret it)

I believe God must be angry with me so
I wash my hands

I wash my hands.
with tedious precaution
so as not to miss
a single palm line
or fingernail.

I wash my hands
until my skin
splits like volcanic rock,
until dew drops of lava
clot across my knuckles,
until I've sacrificed every last
bit of my flesh
in my attempt at purification.

I wash my hands
until it hurts to
eat.
write.
pray.

(But in four years,
I will have stopped
praying altogether,
anyway.)

There’s an electricity in your eyes
The kind that compels me
To disregard all consequence
Drifting effortlessly towards you
Hypnotized by your gaze
I watch the smoke rise
From the edge of your vices
Grabbing your hand delicately
Showing you I’m not all talk
We wandered aimlessly
Through the night
High on the tension
Surging between us
A slow build
Into an explosion of epic proportions
Finding the closest corner
Tucked away from the world
Sharing these moments
So close to fantasy
You feel like a dream
As you consume me body and soul

Stuck
Between two roads
My mind wandering
Trapped
In the ethereal state
Of wanting what I can’t have
The unexpected
The irresistible
Sinking in you
But this floating feeling
Keeps me reeling
You are the tune that I carry
The song I sing
The feelings I bury
Because this is all too scary
When you make my soul feel
Fantasy so real
Too hard to conceal
Looking at your face
This smile can’t be erased
A connection that can’t be replaced
As this heat rises
Spreading throughout my body
You’ve got my brain bumbled
And my whole body flustered
Knowing this has to stay secret
My words must stay mustered
Because I have my reasons
For not diving straight in
But I’m starting to stop caring
If I’m living in sin
Because my eyes can’t stay off of you
And I simply can’t win