there are girls with red panels
down their arms as if they have
been bolted with puncturing plastic,
as if they are robots who whine
in binary code.

"if you have scratched yourself
a few times, you have not cut"
and she lived in a shed,
floorboards pressed to her cheek,
nuts and bolts in her ****** hallows,
pumped with drugs for a white throat.

she should know. i do not deserve
to feel free. i should have never
pushed my razors under paper
wads in my trashcan. i should have
kept them and drag silver over
my skin for shaving, leave me ready
for the next boy with rose hair
and wide, chlorined smile eyes.

there are girls who do not romanticize
romantic illness, like depression isn't
a rose in a jar in your throat, black
and bottle borne and biting at the flesh,
but never talk about recovery. "it's good,"
i am about to say, but i do not know
what it is like to bleed out my body,
spoon out my insides and throw
them away, shudder at lit streetlights
and let tears slink towards bathroom tiles.