Exhaustion is a thousand starving mouths;
Insomnia, a single gnawing doubt.

You cannot blame me
For when your stomach folds
If you keep coming
To my forlorn tree,
Starving.
Not when the poor man's fruit-bearing bush
Is just the other way
Within the same, short walking distance

Trigger Warning: eating disorder mentioned
Tell Me Dear,

     Will you remember the days when I starved myself to a spine? Then I needed the hollow bones to match my emptiness inside. I needed to shrink to bare to be seen. Because then I was afraid my emptiness had begun to expand. I feared it would creep from within the confines of my chest and bare itself to the world. And you see, that’s why I had to stop eating. I had to make room in my gut so that I could hold the emptiness back from the world. And when that began to hollow my insides, I felt nothing but pain. I had no room left for the joy, happiness, or relief that containing the empty could bring. Those I left to all of you on the outside full. Maybe that’s why you all saw me as beautiful, because I brought you nothing but good feelings while I sneakingly choked myself on the bad. That goodness I gave you made me an angel in your eyes. But don’t you know angels have to be lighter than air to fly?

With all the love and goodness I could hold,
     Your Empty Flight

I feel breathless at any speck of thought —an idea— crossing my mind. I am restlessly wishing for something, prying for crumbs, and my mind is slowly sinking. Breathing words for oxygen, concepts for nutrients. I am a starving girl in a desert of words.

Homelessness to evictions to robberies,
Why all the poverty and violence?
Why can't we share wealth, peace and love?
Is it that hard?
It shouldn't be so hard,
It's actually pretty easy,
You eating while your people starving,
What kinda person are you?
We can all eat not just you,
Treat our brothers and sisters as equals,
Not treat em like peasants.

It has to get better,
We gotta treat our brothers and sisters better,
If you eating then feed your family,
Never let your family starve,
There's more love to be shared than hate.

Our way of living has to change,
Things only change when we change them,
Change doesn't happen on its own.

Sometimes
when I look in the mirror
i'm startled to see
me

When
I scrub off the pen lines
odd bits of makeup
all that's left is me

I stand there
bare and trembling
these are the pieces of me
and maybe I'm starving

but at least
I can feel myself smiling
because
these are the marks of my survival

Have you ever starved yourself to the point of sickness?
Empty and hallow and still trying to give pieces of yourself that don’t exist
You take another pill, tell another lie, say to yourself, your family and friends you are fine
Eat just enough to get by
Hope they don’t notice the gaps getting larger between your meals and your thighs
You take sleeping pills because sleep has become harder and harder to reach
The pit in your stomach screams loudly
Warning you that it’s empty
Reluctantly you go and swallow your pride
And hope that will last you through the evening