Sick girl, the doctors said they saved you
but are you really alive?
Your hair is still falling out of your scalp.
There are still scars on your tender skin.
Your mom still cries when she sees you.
Your dad looks at you with worried eyes.
Is that concern just a disguise?
What can you do make it alright?
If open wounds don’t bleed,
and match stick burns don’t sting.
Don’t you think it’s getting old?
How you can save a body, but you can’t save a soul?

What do I call myself?
If the world sees me differently
then I see myself?
If I’m a blancita?
Blancita, a white girl.
Am I just a white girl?
Does the Spanish that escapes my mouth
tell you I’m a white girl?
Even when that language was forced onto my tongue.
Does the brown in my eyes resemble my mother’s skin?
If she’s a morena?
Morena, a brown girl.
But do you know the stories my body tell?
Does the curve of my nose, the crease of my eye,
or the curl of my hair tell you I’m a white girl?
Can you tell the kid that called me a **** at school
that I’m a white girl?
Or the girl who told me my people were toxic
that I’m a white girl?
Can I even call this brown girl blues?
Since my native blood isn't reflected in
my skins hue?
Why don’t you tell me?
Because if I’m just a white girl,
then what freedom do my people seek.

If you cut her open, what would you see?
Are her bones like paper?
Do they fold and cave in like I wish mine did?
Does her heart beat like mine does,
Or did it die when she stopped eating?
Are her lungs full of air?
Does she breath like I do,
Or did they give up when
she forced her boney fingers down her throat?
Is having a thigh gap the true
meaning of life?
Does a flat stomach mean happiness?
Was she happy in the hospital?
With no way out.
Stuck in a place that served as
constant reminder of her toxic head
The devil himself ripping at her flesh,
Telling her to stop eating.
To hollow herself out so she can
truly be empty.
“You need to eat.” they said.
“Stop purging.” they said.
But little do they know it’s not so simple.
When your hatred for yourself runs so deep
That it cuts through every *****, every tissue,
every cell, until there’s nothing left.  
Sometimes I wonder if skinny girls bleed.
How can you look so weak, and have blood
run through your veins?
Does bleeding make you human?
Or is being beautiful more important?

This is an ode to the unwanted.
To those who are rejected
regardless of how hard they try.
To the people who know the feeling
of being stabbed in the back all too well.
To anyone whose pain was so overwhelming that
they became isolated.
This is for the girl in my twelfth
grade class who told me she cut herself.
To the boy who got beat up on the playground
almost everyday in elementary school.
I never imagined that I would become you one day.
That I would be so mentally paralyzed and
resort to cutting my skin.  
Or so hated that people attacked me in every way.
I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.
I regret to say that I made you feel unwanted.
If you’re like me, maybe death was the solution
to your problems, but even that didn’t save me.
It turns out, if you’re broken enough, even
death doesn’t want you
Is there any true bliss for the unwanted,
or do we all pay the price?