blood stained fingernails
hollow eyed
intestine pasta
with a beating heart side
you don't need it
but i need it
a swig of ipecac
to polish off your favorite shade of wine
a kick of copper and regret

but i am eating
her stomach grew smaller
she drowned a little deeper
a nasty lie beneath gritted teeth

come back darling,
dinner is served

so yeah,*
i threw up thrice yesterday
let my fingers tip the trigger
& stroke my neuroticism
i just wanted to cheat:
synchronize my gut & brain
remove the abandon that
i fear with my entire being
lest it spread like a virus

yes, i’m ashamed of
that violent emptying,
of the maniac Itch that
takes ahold of me when
i feel i have no control
over the territory between
hope & disappointment
& these dramatic emotions
that render me so **** happy

but now,
i’ve begun to realize
that i can’t erase the past
& perhaps, it’s better to just
swallow my pride & place
my worth outside of what power
i may or may not yield, for
perfection is poison & i have
no right to demand it of you
nor myself

& no, i am not fragile,
although i may  tremble...
i am strong now,
in part, having carried
all these heavy things
i've fed myself on for years
forgive you, forgive myself
& finally purge for once & all
of these habitual burdens

**for i am full without them.

You probably wonder
Why I keep telling you
How bad of a person I am
I'm just waiting for you to finally figure it out
And realize that I am poison
Of the very worst kind
And that not even ipecac can help you
When you try to regurgitate
All memories of me

In the 1970s there was a wave of soft pop that struck America
one band at the crest of that wave was The Carpenters
formed by Richard and Karen Carpenter
they were wildly successful
their song We’ve Only Just Begun is still a ubiquitous wedding song
Karen’s smooth and pure voice drew giant crowds
but despite how timeless her music is
it is equally contrasted by the briefness of her life.

Karen captivated a worldwide audience with her music
but some people just can’t be reached
indoctrinated by our superficial society
thinking every celebrity should be a supermodel
critics made snide comments about her being Richard’s chubby sister
even though she wasn’t overweight
and Richard was addicted to Quaaludes
but even more important than the public was Karen’s own mother
who worried of the public’s feelings more than her own daughter’s.

Karen felt pushed to lose weight
so she hired a nutritionist
who loaded her down with carbohydrates
which obviously made her fatter
crushing her faith in nutrition
turning her towards unhealthy methods
...which worked...at first...
but unfortunately it kept working
and she refused to change, unlike her body.

Fans who once cheered for her
now gasped when they saw her emaciated skeleton take the stage
they thought she might’ve had cancer
and were concerned about her weight
but to her it was the same crowd telling her to lose weight
now telling her to gain weight
she was done hearing it
and stuck in her ways.

Her friends were worried about her
and pleaded for her to seek help
but her mother’s profession was repression
so Karen hid her depression
while her mother told her psychiatrists were for crazy people.

Karen tried using a man to make her problems disappear
and married Tom Burris two months after meeting him in 1980
he would verbally abuse her; calling her a bag of bones
then he’d *** money off her; amounts up to $50,000 at a time
needless to say the relationship was ill fated
and they divorced in 1981.

Finally Karen’s friends convinced her to see a therapist
who brought her family into a counseling session
and urged them to tell Karen they love her
of course Richard was willing to say so, they were always really close
especially after Karen had helped him with his own addiction issues
but Karen’s mother refused
berating the therapist for using her first name; Agnes
and informing him that wasn’t how their family did things.

Karen Carpenter passed away February 4, 1982 at the age of 32
she died from ipecac poisoning
she used the substance to induce vomiting every day
and it slowly dissolved her heart.

Richard was devastated.

There’s not much I can add
I guess Karen’s story speaks for itself
it just ****** me off critics jeer with impunity and without empathy
they’re free to cajole great artists while having no value themselves
driving artists away until we’re only left with negativity
it makes me want to cut out all the demons’ razor sharp tongues
before they get a taste of another angel’s wings
but would that really protect those angels
if they’re born to demons?

It's midnight in September and above me all I can see
Is every word I could never come up with
Formed into constellations I could never articulate.
Perhaps if my mouth were as vast as the sky
I could spill out my mind without second guessing.
Even after choking down a spoonful of ipecac
I can't manage to regurgitate
The paragraphs I swallowed an hour ago.
I still haven't grasped the concept
Of translating from Emotion to English
The meaning always gets lost somewhere in between.
My stomach remains forever tied
In the bunny ear knot my brother taught me.
At five years old I didn't realize
The pain I was putting my shoelaces through.
And I still remember when my mother told me
"You've got a heart so big it'll swallow you whole"
It's taken me all of my nineteen years
To fully understand what she meant.

she looks in the mirror
trails a finger down her skin
doesn't feel her bones
ashamed of the skin that she's in
she takes a bite of the bread
succumbing to the devil
but she pours the ipecac down her throat
Mia and Ana, rolling in their revel
crying into her pillow
because she's so fat
everyone else is prettier
she's not even worth looking at
stops eating for a month
not satisfied with her body
death's knocking on her door
but hey, she's no longer stocky!
boys have been staring her down
lust filling their eyes
it's sad to see that no one else sees
this detrimental disguise
the blood trickles down her forearm
who could be more proud?
but inside she's screaming for help
screaming for help, real loud
she never got a chance to say goodbye
what a bitter taste
but she got what she wanted
and all she wanted was a dainty waist

In health class,
they presented a visual that represented
one pound of fat, and I
can't escape the image because I have
the equivalent of 32.89
yellowish blocks in my messy girl-
body; 23% of my existence is
gelatinous and imperfect.

The magazines scream
acceptance, but the models are
size 2
and I want to make myself
bleed. "Boys love curves! Honey, your figure is
perfect."
...but it isn't about boys in
high school or men on the streets with their
***** eyes and intent to corrupt. The
struggle is in how my hip-
bones sing at the prospect of
prominence even though I could find
sustenance in nothing but lettuce and
Red Bull Zero and I would still want
to swallow razor blades and
Ipecac until the basin fills
with blood and food that
smelled too powerful
to ignore and felt like sin when it
tumbled into my stomach acid.

My size eight body doesn't look like
I'm sick because I still have
full hips and everyone sees
me with something chocolate in my
hand, and girls who eat, girls with
cellulite are never
as troubled as the models whose
ribs look like bird cages that trap
their hummingbird hearts. I tell
my friends that I'm having a bad
day, which will pass, but I've been
having these "bad days" since I was
eight years old and I saw
that the thighs exposed by my
stretchy,
orange shorts were too wide
to be beautiful. I was size
0 when I was twelve, but every-
one else was still shopping in
the children's section.

They call it body dysmorphia and
talk about self-esteem because
bulimia
is an ugly word that implies
ruined enamel, blistered lips, and
hospital gowns. Real girls let calories
nestle into their bodies because
bathrooms aren't glamorous,
and no one wants to kiss
a mouth that tastes like
*****.

My therapist's office is supposed
to feel safe, but all I want to
do is shatter the mirror and
slice my body open on the
frame's teeth. The spines of the books
on her wall remind me that other
girls have blood stained bras in
their closet, and jagged cliffs in
their minds, and maybe that should
help even though they aren't here
to hold my hair back or
stroke my arm until the earth-
quakes in my head slow down enough
that I can stand.

A boy who used to love me is
pulling away as though this
is a slow dance, and I'm
trying to hold too
tightly... My was
always an adventure film, but
the fight scenes have grown
repetitive and the special effects
have weakened with
time. No one knows when the
credits will roll, and that isn't
the kind of suspense he
wants when he has a girlfriend
and a future.
I am exhausting.

Shoelaces look like nooses when I
feel this alone because
I see escape in every-
thing.
This isn't an ideation, I
just want to
sleep.

Disgusting globules of yellow
ugliness bulge under
v-necks that used to make me
feel desirable and maybe
even powerful. Now the only power
comes from hunger
pains and the dizziness
of an empty stomach.

Senior year, and my nights are
razor blades instead of
rolling papers, rivulets of
blood replacing shots of someone's
parents' whiskey. No one wants
to be friends with girls in
sweatshirts who don't know how
to eat; we're suicide
watch, even if we don't want
to die...
I stopped writing suicide
notes. I am
fine.

The doctors call it isolating
even though I know the humane
thing to do is separate parasite
and host, especially if
they loved me before I
needed salvation...
No one signs up to be a life
preserver.

have you found your next darling spithole yet?
not meaning to come off rude but
i just don't have photo albums in my home anymore
of all those weathered stacks
of glossy tourist postcards and airbrushed polaroids and half-arsed private promises that led to
quick pity ***** and more simpleminded conversations (weather? news? one plus one?)
when you ran out of coffee grounds
and breakfast was cold
and the fingernail scars being shamefully picked on were still quite scarlet
like vampire tongues
fresh off a feast, a binge, a hellfest
of a hot-lipped hunger pang
how many towns did you ravage and terrorise and theatrically swoop over with your velvet raiments
how many people fainted
at the mere sight of your anaemic cadaver-sheet skin and anabolic empty marble glare
how many ****** pitchforks punctured your abdomen and how many furious torches
burned the inside of your pelvis and how many corroded teeth did you lose chewing on
leftover bones the next night
sitting all alone in your grandiose dining hall that smells of decaying rats and halitosis
spitting out the occasional tough marrow or stray spider leg (you never really got used to that odd brackish flavour),
how much of it was
worth it to you?
you were acting on impulse
instinct
some other impressive, egregious “i” word you have yet to figure out;
i can't blame you.
blame is too weak a word for anyone with half your brain to ever understand
i can't blame myself
except sometimes in the middle of the night when my teeth refuse to unclench (pissoffpissoffpissOFF)
i understand
you're the same as everyone else (nothing wrong with that i'm wrong i'm wrong so wRoNg) but
sometimes understanding doesn't mean forgiving
[just nod] yes i understand
okay fine, you crave makeup kisses
caked-up made-up fake love fake blood
painting broken boundaries all over brocade bedsheets screaming
slipping almost begging
WARNING don't cross this line and carefully step over the crude chalk drawings
where many unfortunate deaths have occured
splintered spines and shredded vascular systems and cannibal sick sighs
you barely even toed it and you lost an entire ******* arm
past that finish line
where they unhinged their jaws like singing serpents and gorged mercilessly
until their overbloated stomachs
ballooned up and burst into confetti just in time
for the next baby shower birthday party funeral eulogy
and you might be the next
victim
will you fall for that
a g a i n ?
never ****** mind that—
because we're all about acceptance here.
we're all about holy terrors cavorting with holey beggars
we're all about your tremulous callused hands on the inside of someone's delicate insides
coil up their wrenched guts again musicman
spill your unraveling lullaby all the softly shrieking butterflies have desperately searched for a way out
and you crushed them all
just to feel iridescent powder sparkling in your stained palms at 3 a.m.
reflecting the gentle throb of the glow-in-the-dark stars and the grating television static and the godless blue in your undilated pupils
when she's lying next to you fitfully asleep
dreaming of an infinite field where the weeping azaleas never bloom (she still wonders what it meant)
ribcage left ajar just a peep
cascading umber hair and stick-insect limbs splayed all over your worn pillows
sometimes unconsciously feeling your freezing nape
and you feel nothing
at all
i hope you're happy (satisfied?)
or i hope at least, that she rinses off your fraying toothbrush after she uses it to secretly purge in your newly-cleaned toilet
if that's not too much to ask for
and you also left some day-old lemonade and reheated battery acid by the fridge door
just in case
but you missed out on buying coffee grounds again
even though there's an unhealthy smattering of pinned yellow-note reminders
right next to her faded number
and you'll be moving out next week
oh well. oh well. unwell.
my obscene picture collection is still incomplete even though it's set to display on a national gallery next week [this is your cue to clap]
but you never called back so
i hope you're happy (****—sorry—satisfied)
she's not
and please, don't forget to gargle.

Misanthropic ipecac syrup stirred up in my belly
Jelly filled bow hunts
Haunted my head
****** doughnuts stopped me dead
I vomited a sonnet into tissues
Fuzzy stars seem to swish through
My larynx without time for healing.
Stealing good graces from her strawberry face
Is the only way I'm dealing

Macerating in an addictive lifestyle,
Low key, complacent.......
At least appear to be,
Meanwhile
proverbial metaphorical analogy
The epic  inner turmoil
A gurgling cauldron of turbid water laced with ecstacy,
tupac,poprocks
ipecac, and Deepak chopra on **** amphetamine,,,,
I'm in a padded room a straight jacket
A handful of Vaseline,
And the walls are covered with *******
This makes my feel bad
MMMMMMMMMMM-KAAaaayy!
My.. psyche........ c.r..a...c....king
½- time skrrrrrrt....
K WAIT!
Psychiatrist please.....,..
No WAIT WAIT WAIT!
That's me ........
Psychologist please.......
Ya no.......no I know I KNOW!!!!!
What is it?
????
Ok ok ok gulp............
Oh .>......,huh!.....
Ok that's better
In retrospect I suppose I could either
Exccaserbate or exfoliate and extrapolate
That these things and occurrences in which
I am not only forced to pause
But also
I'm givin cause to say........
I knew this was going to happen!!!!!
Is not clairvoyance or esp.
It's the innate ability to see I have limited control of these things
.......
Meaning I can choose whether not to cause them ,
At epicenter ,,,,,
And controll impact and reaction in the second wave,
Rarely third wave and nothing beyond to infinity
And it's after the fourth wave when
actions ,deeds,and words heard
Get filled and covered in embellishments
Picked up and slung by our enemies,
Become festering lesions on our character
For everyone but us to see.......
.......
..
Everybody's gota be so **** polite
Nobody says a **** thing........
Well not to you......
Not face to face.
No no no,,,
Not these days .....
Behind your back?
Oh they just can't wait?
Then they're all about it
Taking **** rumor mongers
Backbiting chiding frenemies
Slinging mud day and night!