I don't know much
except that when they call me "darling"
it feels like a warm blanket
And when their hands are in my hair
or scraping the back of my neck
so light it makes me shiver,
i think for the first time in too long
that i could die happy
I know that i want to spend my days laying with them,
laughing, teasing, but always
coming back to "i love you";
my nights holding on
sending one last text
before a sleep that gets me closer to seeing them again
I don't know much.
But I've already gone through a lot
and loving them is one of the only things
that i want to keep going through,
until i know them
and only them.

Who am i?
When the scars are stripped away
the obsessions gone
the compulsions unneeded
When i don't know the taste of serotonin on my tongue
the disappointment of looking in the mirror
or the bite of metal against my stomach
When i am myself again,
bare of the illnesses that have weighed me down
Who will i be?

Across the table
my grandpa asks me why
i don't eat cinnamon toast crunch anymore.
The last time i saw them
i loved it so much
that he tried it, and got hooked
but now i don't touch it.
And i don't know how to tell him
why,
how to tell him
that the thought of all that sugar
paralyzes me.
So i just sit with my corn flakes,
avoid his eyes
and hope he doesn't notice
how desperately i wish i could eat it.

It's strange how healing works.
I still have pictures on my phone
from when scars were an angry red
before they faded to a softer,
paler reminder.
At the time i thought they would never fade
would always stay there,
just as they were-
I thought i would never fade either,
would never change
yet here i am
two or three years later
and a completely different person.
Not healed,
but the pain has faded,
just a bit.
My skin is no longer covered in red;
but i don't know who i am without it
honestly, I don't know who I'll be
once everything fades.

Maybe I'm just not meant to be small
or light
Maybe I'll forever exist outside of
what i have been taught is "beautiful"
Maybe some day I'll accept this
not today, maybe not for a while, but
I look forward to that day.

beneath me ice gives way-
i give up hope of day,
as i descend into the darkness

the edges start to fray
i fall, away, away;
water swirls, cold and heartless

heavy the pressure weighs
my mind in disarray
in the midst of blackness i see Death;

yet my fate is delayed,
my body not decayed,
and i will take one more breath.