I can't sleep with
            The sound of your
                   h e a r t  b e a t
          in my
                   e
                      a
                         r
                            s

I was a tragedy
But you thought
I was a comedy

I can see the shadows.
No, not your shadow,
The shadows.
The ones that crawl up your spine,
leaving little bruises along your back.
The ones that wrap themselves around your mind
and whisper horrible things in your head.
Their tendrils reach out,
looking desperately for others,
wrap their inky, dangerous selves around your friends,
because when they consume you,
they'll need a new host.

He held out his hand to me,
but when I reached for his support,
he let me fall.
He looked at me
eyes so cold,
his voice sharp, wounding
"I'm not here to help you."

He asked me about my scars...
And I could't answer,
filling the silence with
that disgust and fear welling up in my chest.
This would be the end of us.
That's how it always is.
You can fill cracks with gold,
you can paint over the streaks,
but it's not the same
and no one wants a broken girl.
Not even as friends like us.
but he just looked at me and said
You should know that you're perfect
and don't need any of that.
*...And you're feisty.

You make me feel
like I've been
struck by lightening.
Heart stop
Electrify
I can feel my veins burning.
Coursing through my bones
I can't tell if it hurts or tingles.

Somewhere along the way,
I decided it was better to feel nothing at all.
Better not to hurt, not feel, not to suffer.
The canary in my birdcage heart has stopped singing
and we all know it's dead,
It's time to leave before we all perish
in the wasteland of myself.

Watch your body fall to pieces.
It will not be the first to give up on you,
but it won't be the last, either.

When your nose bleeds,
resist the urge to scream.
It is only because all you've eaten
in the past three days was a grape.
Calcium deficiency.

Your skin will turn yellow
and your nails will be brittle.
It's not beautiful.
You will not look like the plastic
photo lies on the magazine covers.

Your body is consuming itself.
Maybe it sounds like poetry,
but it tastes like fear.
The fear of gaining weight,
the fear of not being perfect.

Your heart will weaken,
your kidneys could fail,

If you die of anorexia nervosa,
it will not be beautiful.
It will not be poetic.
It is grotesque and painful.
The doctors will shove tubes down your throat
just to keep you alive,
while your mind screams,
we can't have those calories

How do you waste away?
It's easy to do.
Hate every piece of yourself
until it's so small you can't feel it.