I’ve always been small.
Height-wise and generally, weight-wise, too.
But for some reason, it clicked in my head that I couldn’t be 110 anymore.
100 was one digit too many.

95 was 5 too heavy.

1000 was 800 too many for a day.

48 hours of emptiness wasn’t enough.

I’ve never been overweight or anywhere near. I’ve been at a lower weight my whole life.

Its never really been about losing weight but I can’t stop myself from making it become a goal.

I’m falling back into bad habits.

I’m wilting. Decaying.

no mercy
silver glinting in the light
charging forward
no surrender
blade meets tender skin
tender skin splits
blood spills
bloodshed
there is no time for mourning in a war
white speckled red
drip
        drip
                dripping
the enemy hidden behind the glass
destroy it from the inside
destroy yourself
there is no time for mourning in a war

"I made a product for men"

My Father's words resonated in my head
What did he mean by "product"?
My seven year old mind
tried to put it together
like a puzzle
I couldn't quite put the pieces together
I left my father's words
scattered on the floor that day

Ten years later
you crawled out of the darkness into my soul
you took my dignity that night and
my mind couldn't help but drift
to the grocery store
ten years back
where my father told the cashier
that he had made a "product" for men

The seven year old me
picked up the words
my father spit out,
not knowing what they would
one day do to his little girl
I put them together
each piece fit perfectly
I knew exactly what my father meant by "product" now

"Product"
that's precisely what I was to you
something to be used
for your satisfaction
I was to be submissive
to the male
"dont disappoint him"

I was held captive
in my own body
a body that was now in your possession

you used me carelessly
left me dry
without life
nothing could be planted in me and flourish anymore

Somehow what you did to me
was acceptable
what you made me do
over and over again
until it was ideal for you
was acceptable
I am a product
that is what I was made to do
I was meant to be used by you
over and over again

Anxiety is not cute, and it is not fun
Anxiety is not something to make light of and to pretend you have for giggles
Anxiety is suffering
Anxiety is waking up at 3 in the morning because I am so sick to my stomach that it wakes me up for an hour
Anxiety is my skin breaking out in hives so severe that I break the skin and bruise and bleed because I am scratching so **** hard
Anxiety is when I try to sleep at midnight but am still awake at 5:30 in the morning and I still try to count down to the second exactly how much sleep I will get tonight
Anxiety is when I cannot bring myself to eat even though it has been 31 hours since my last meal
Anxiety is waking up in the middle of slumber because I thought of what I should have said in an argument four days prior
Anxiety is how it is noon and I cannot bring myself to get out of bed and make my day real
Anxiety is how I have made myself feel like I am going insane and I feel like my breaths are short and nothing feels right
Anxiety is how things do not go the exact way I planned them to and I sit there contemplating crying for the whole day
Anxiety is how I feel myself acting like I am crazy and I feel that I am not me and yet I cannot change the way I react
Stop trying to make anxiety cute
It is not romantic
It is not adorable
It is not fun
Anxiety is what prevents me from living a normal life
Anxiety is what drives me out of my mind

where will i find myself in two years?
barely dragging myself out of bed every morning
alone and stressed to the point of snapping?

or, maybe, somehow

i will wake up every morning
likely exhausted
but happy.

happy.
that’s a thought.
a fleeting, fickle thought,
but a thought nonetheless.
i don’t remember the last time i could say
“i’m happy”
without it being at least partially a lie.

i’m just used to it now.
when we had to write lists for inspiration
so we could write this poem
one of the lists was “5 things i am an expert in”
and number 3 on my list
was depression!

number 5 was falling in love.
falling in love.

falling in love is my saving grace.
my love has found me
broken, ******, and bruised.
not my bones
but my heart
shattered into too many pieces
broken glass
that cuts anyone who tries to come near it.

most people leave when they realize that.
one adopted me, but that’s just what she does.
but my love didn’t leave.
she found my bruises and wounds
and bandaged them
and somehow
fell deeper in love with me.

thank you.

i hate her.
i hate the way she talks,
the way it's always the wrong thing,
the way her voice is always uneven.
i hate the way she slouches;
is it apathy she feels, or the weight of the world?
she can never seem to decide.
i hate that she isn't smarter,
that she isn't calmer,
that she isn't motivated,
that she isn't kind.
i hate that she trusts too much or too little.
i hate that she makes everything a big deal.
i hate her fickleness.
i hate her anger that she has no right to feel,
and the sadness she doesn't understand,
and her stupid ticks
and stupid fights
and stupid feelings.
i hate that she likes feeling sad
just to feel anything at all.
i hate her cliche words.
i hate her clumsiness.
i hate that she loves attention.
i hate that she tries to drag everyone into her problems,
ignoring the way they're hurting,
in some sort of warped cry for help.
i hate that she likes the way fire feels against her skin,
but most of all,
i hate that she can still face herself in the mirror day after day.

we talk about depression like an old, long lost friend; hes the guy that no one can ever remember who invited him to the party, but he always showed up before the end of the night. hes in every photograph we’ve ever taken, a photobomb that we had no chance of preventing. i used to think that he sat behind us like a wave, looming over the shore, wondering when it would crash but i know now he was nestled in the waves of our hair, sat in the spaces between our teeth, lodged in our throats. he knew how to conceal himself when there were cameras around. his name sits uncomfortably in our mouths, like its too big; or maybe its just too ******. his arms always felt warm when they wrapped around my waist to remind me that i still had a waist, i didnt want to have a waist. he spoke every language, knew what to call my downfall in fifteen dialects. he was the kind of friend to hit you where no one would see and claim the battle wound for his own. he had a superpower. he was invisible, but only when he wanted to be, and only to those who he didnt want to see him. he was a magician, a jack of all trades. he dipped his toes in darkness and shook them in my direction; he knew that i dont know how to swim. he knew that i would not want to learn how to swim for him.