How do you explain living with a hole in your chest
as if talking about it somehow fills it
somehow makes it better
somehow makes the bitter pill easier to swallow
but talking about it doesn't make the sickness in my brain go away
or hurt any less
talking about it gives it shape and a body
gives it two legs to follow my every move
and two hands to wrap around my neck and choke the life out of me
it gives it lips and a tongue to whisper in my ear "it's better this way"
"they don't care about you"
"just one more inch off your waist,
one more pound off your body,
just one more year of your life"
I was barely fourteen when I tried to **** myself
First by slowly starving myself
Second, three years later with medication changes and razors  
There was nothing tragically beautiful about my sickness
About my downward spiral into self-loathing
Nothing glorious in my struggle to remember to breathe
I watched people my age having the time of their life
While I was stuck watching from the side because I was too sick,
Too fearful,
Too weak to join them
I shriveled away until I was half the girl I was before
Now two different medications later
I somehow learned to breathe again
Somehow relearned how to take care of myself
My chest is still a bomb site,
But it's no longer an open wound
No longer filled with hard liquor in hopes of catharsis
Sometimes recovery sounds a lot more like "I'll do better tomorrow"
Than "I'm sorry for today"
The truth is still a knife fight
But I'm not losing the war anymore.