I haven’t weighed myself in weeks. I have this incessant itch inside of me longing to know what numbers I ring up to be. But everyday I hear another gnawing voice say,
“You are not a number, you are a person. A number does not define you. What defines you is your kindness, your efforts, the way you live your life.”

But what happens when the way I’ve been living my life for the past year and a half has been nothing BUT numbers and scales and nutrition labels and dysmorphia. What happens when my efforts have only been reduced to reducing myself? What happens when kindness overflows towards others, but I cannot even look in the mirror and say “I love you.” What happens when you are completely consumed by something that refuses to let you consume?
-Does the tunnel end soon?

All I ever yearned to do was grow.
But sadly, I never got the rain I deserved.

Instead,
I shriveled up.
Inside and out,
body and soul.

Lustful greens
turned to hopeless browns.
My roots dug deep,
only to be planted in
the darkest places possible.

Tell me,
what is worse than seeing the sun
but feeling no warmth?

I could not survive you again. 
Your storm ripped me limb from limb;
I was strewn about, losing pieces of myself in the wind.
 
Lightning struck: the blow of your hand on my cheek.
Black and blue cloud-shaped bruises,
thunder rippling underneath my skin.
 
I used to like the rain, but my heart was sopping wet and
you were mad because I needed the sun more
than I needed you.
 
I was ready for flowers
to be planted within me,
not to be constantly uprooted instead.
 
I gained strength and freed myself from you, 
but that also meant I finally gained the strength to let go of the worst parts of myself too.

The soles of my feet,
raw.
Mile after mile, i run
To clear my mind, but deep down it’s to see how far away I’m able to get from this version of myself

My spine,
bruised.
Sticking out like thorns in a garden, piercing the skin
Every sit up brings me closer to pain.

Fingers and toes,
cold and brittle.
The blood does not flow fast enough anymore to keep me warm.
Once iron filled, now ghostly pale.

But
don’t you dare try to write me off 
as if I am completely broken
when all I am is cracked.

I will learn how to fill the missing pieces,
the parts that slowly dissipated behind closed doors.

Trust me,
I am worth salvaging.

spent every summer there with you.
the water, so much brighter and blue.

Two minute walk from
the doorstep to the shoreline.
The stars flooded the black sky,
we sank into course sand until the sunrise

the people i love may be here,
but i refuse to call this home.
home is defined by tiny splinters
in my feet from the pier,
and feeling the shifting sky of the
oncoming thunderstorms in my bones.

salt flows through my blood,
faster than the night we ran
from the red and blue.
cause you knew if i was going down,
so were you.

300 miles away,
I can still smell hibiscus flowers in full bloom.
The cocoa coast,
I’ll be there soon.

Take me back to the month of June, 
when my only worry was not waking the whole house
when trying to catch the fleeting beauty of the sunrise.
 
Nothing but wild locks of brunette and
gold intertwining to make a perfect wave.
Constantly being told I smelled of salt,
but to me it was more like freedom.
 
My feet always raw from burning sand,
raw from weathering shells.
Sweet feelings, new wavelengths;
lips sticky from the chocolate milkshake.
 
No closed toed, wool lined attire in sight,
but instead surf tees and ripped jeans.
Bottle caps were collectables,
Bud Light Lime still resonates on my tongue.
 
I’ve been trying so hard to find my old self,
until I realized I had sadly let it slip away;
just like the sun does
beneath the horizon on those endless summer days.

But,
I know the windows will soon be down
and the sun will rise again,
just as I will.

tangerine and pink flying through your eyes.
Sending flames to not only the sky,
but my heart as well.
They engulf my soul.
Keeping me warm through the night
when the colors have faded to nothing but smoke.
Skin wrapped up in the magic of your fingertips,
the wild flower you tucked behind my ear
blown free in a spiral towards the blistering clouds.
I ran and ran to the edge of the field, grass tickling my toes.
Only to feel the warmth on my back and realize it’s time again.
There will be a million wildflowers, but only one golden hour.
I wouldn’t want to miss it.