Category: Uncategorized

Are the jagged red grooves etched
across my skin, there because I
rake my fingernails along my
abdomen while I lie in bed at night,
trying to claw my way out of the body
I inherited?

Were these arms passed down to me
through generations of women who
came before me, starving and contorting
themselves to avoid judgmental glares
which bore into their bones until their
marrow was gifted to me?

Was I pressed, bleeding into a world,
from a body like mine, so I could
tear out my hair and dig at my pores
until my tissue collects to form a
crescent moon I’ll never be rid of?

When did I begin to hate my sisters,
since hating myself is nearly the same;
if she shares my body, my flaws,
must I loathe her with the same vigor?

Where can we flee to a place where
our flesh will be safe from those who
wish to harm or humiliate, where
the masses will love our brokenness?

Who can be trusted to claim us, and in
hatred does not mention the elephant in this
room whose name sounds like mine?

Will I strive daily until I am small enough
to fit into the silhouette made just for me?

Why do I resolve to disappear?

Blood drips from the seams of her pants which squeeze her thighs
Her ribs protrude and her skin flays
Her eyes bulge and blacken
Her hair turns to strands that resemble yarn
and patches of space leave people staring
Oh God she’s decaying
Her presence dissipates as her face thins
“I am here! I am living!”
Even though her heart is barely beating
“I’m grotesque. I’m macabre.”
Quite the opposite of what she wanted to be

I crave cravings;
The heaviness of hunger,
And the weight of losing years.
Feeling empty fills me up.
I’m never without a cup
Of liquid deception.
No one speaks about the hit
Of lying and hiding away,
Like a sugar rush;
A thing I’ve not had in years.
Feeling hollow, told I’m shallow,
Yet my emotions are deep.
Am I a tree trunk or a trench?
No type of media can portray
Such a mind in disarray.
Beneath the flurry lies a chance
To be a sage contributor.
If I can find my way back
Through the brush,
And pump myself full of
Enough false wisdom,
To see through the fog.
To reach into the haze
And pull out the key;
The “off” switch.
To plunge said revelation
Into the dark, twisting,
With hope, for light.
But when I see it, I spin.
Maybe my body does, too,
But at least it’s my head.
Perhaps I could go back
The way I came,
But it would be a different path.
Like Hansel and Gretel,
I lost my breadcrumbs.
And I’d have to count my steps
Along the way.

Everyone gets a turn at tag, but if you are
small, slow, as I was, you take little short bursts
and catch no one back, or run as a lottery of
‘maybe i just need to try hard’, only to be cut
short towards another child close, and again
failing. Recess ends unsatisfied and alone. I
surrendered my chance at proving myself to
attention that I rarely get, that was given freely
– squandered welfare, which leads to even less
faith in being able, which is like thinking when
short of breath, and likely led to it.
Sometimes, often after weeks or a month of
long work, my breath becomes shallow, my
lungs a small lipped jug that I can’t breathe to
the bottom of. Uncomfortably I stretch into the
tightness to scratch at the bottom. In bed I’ll lie
there thinking, becoming like in salt water,
supported by the bed, which becomes my torso.
I grab at thoughts as they whisper past and
through.
Always the darkness of the room is poor,
light pollutes all night: street lamps, alarms, I
am awake to dimness, in a still lake that grows
mold, and has the most evil bugs flying off. I
plunge my hands in, flailing about, touched by
the coolness of water slipping around my fingers
that are drawn out full of disease, which I then
put in my mouth

The body, the mind, and the heart of a woman
Entangled within the soul of a man
A love as is female’s, an empathy as is girl’s
Softness and corrosion as is common with women
Within the vastness of eyes that is a contemplative boy’s
Underneath lashes pattered by a girl as she watches the clouds roll by
A soul to oppose the physical, a mind to oppose the soul
Violet hues amongst peach and ocean and the galaxies that bloom from within
A fabulous cacophony comes out at the end,
Two parts woman, one part star
With millions of intricate details and thoughts and experiences and loves
Unwhole without all that is, will be, and was, an impossible mix of each
So simple on paper so complex from scratch
The divine within body, holding close every part of one
Nought to be understood by any or all
But to simply love, to hold, to think, to feel
Perhaps even to be
As one was always meant to

It probably started when I was eight,
when mom started buying Equate weight loss
shakes to replace after-school snacks, worrying
I’d outgrow the kids’ section before my friends.

I spent hours each day holding in my core,
feeding on compliments I received from grandparents
on my shrinking waist in my third-grade graduation dress.
My ribs sore, my center burning, I held my breath
during every second of the chorus reception.

My biggest insecurity is no longer numbers on tags,
my side profile, or stretch marks striping my breasts,
but the two asymmetrical flabs just below my ribs
which my doctor says are from years spent sucking in.

often ask myself if I could change myself
physically for you, would I?
Would I let go of my girlhood memories and horrors of being a woman?
Would I say to hell with my breast? Figure you know what’s best.
If I traded bodies with your other lover, would you choose me again?
Or would you choose someone else and I’d be
stuck in another body I feel misplaced in?

please, peace, perfection

perfection, it’s what you need to be. it is what you need to have. you manage emotions and feel for people who can’t care to burden themselves with the feelings they fear.

this is perfection and it can be achieved here:

control,
contain,
consumed.

consumed by constant fear of the impending step out of line the imperfect unattractive life the ugly number that feels like the difference between satisfied and perfect

stop,
stare,
starve.

the deadly directions that sound like they derive from demons in your brain that fill your head with pain

and make you want to shrink

into something small into something that pushes you to the brink of skinny and happy.

try
cry
die

left feeling numb. no emotions to make you anxious anymore

no worry to stop you from starving until you collapse on the floor until you lose everyone that wanted to help

even though all your emotions have already been felt

enough for a lifetime

and it’s like they’ve been used up.

this is perfection.

the drained complexion and haunted reflection

this is perfection.

It took one image to loath her
Horrible, I thought
My mother knew
So, she told me a story

She spoke of flowers
One could discern,
How flowers have unconventional beauty,
How its incommensurate petals bestow life,
How one bows to be measured in avoirdupois,
How one watches a pair of sunbursts

One day,
The atmosphere ripened,
Heat thickened the garden
Now, each resplendent wished to bow down
Feasting upon the Lincoln green grass
Too late, perianth rapidly cascaded
One lasted, head tilted down, she remained strong

My mother, she knew
And I knew the silence of her breath
I took three steps away from the mirror
I could feel every flesh I have, the hefty desire to cut it
I was not an untamed flower nor tamed
I was just by the street, awfully growing and growing,
No one wanted to rest their eyes at

Seven years, people keep passing through
The flower could not stop growing
No one sat down and rested
A “revolting sight” was what she was told
A horrible cataclysm brewed inside her
And her own hands clung unto her
She was no longer looking for nourishment

Lost the key where she usually hides
So, she cried and compromised
Her puerile jokes once true, now broken
And no one caught the subtle truth
Alone,
She bowed behind them
As I withered too, unnoticed,
And the ambience changed

I’ve learned to become your pull apart dolls,
I can’t change this reflection carved into
this diamond mirror—
I’ve been burned into this glass.

My lungs wither, stomach sucked in,
I cry until the breath’s been wrung from my body—
Hang me out to dry.

I’ve taken this needle to my belly,
Sucking out this impurity you punish,
My pain collides with your perfection.

This mirror cracks under strain,
It’s cracked edges carving my mouth
into picket fence grins,
Twist my skin for your joy,
Spill this fools blood.

Stains in this white satin doll,
I hold myself together with pink ribbon and dandelions,
Engraving hips into a perfect hourglass.

Removing my ribs, it doesn’t matter
This is all for beauty,
You tell me beauty is pain,
And it seems my pain morphs into you beauty so I’ll keep it up.

I shave away this skin,
Sit in this bleach water bathtub, and
And sew my skin together with the edge of this knife,
Flowers become my thread.

This dead-faced girl,
Body devoured by rats,
Bereft of life.

Color me the shade of crimson
You find in running rivers
Of all this I’ve done to be your perfect
Pull apart doll.

Your reimagined picture
Has ended in my destruction