You're not eating properly
Eliane's mother said
you've hardly eaten a thing
Elaine who'd been thinking

of the boy John
looked up
through her glasses

at her mother
at the dining table
got to eat
her father interjected

got to eat
my young Plump Hen
her sister said nothing

but grinned
I do eat
Elaine said
but she didn't feel

like eating
it seemed the least
important thing

at that moment
her stomach felt
as if it had fallen
into a slumber

not enough
her mother said
maybe she's fallen in love

her father bantered
Elaine went red
and lowered her head
and began to nibble

at the food on her plate
nonsense
her mother said

it's some silly
slimming diet
I bet
not very successful

if it is
her younger sister said smiling
John had touched her arm

in passing at school
not by accident
but by design
he meant to touch

to bring her briefly
into his world
his circumference

she still touched
now and then
the area on her arm
he touched (at school)

with her fingers
I won't have you dieting
over some silly fad

her mother went on
but Elaine ceased listening
the words were buzzing flies
she wanted to

flick them away
with a hand
John had talked to her

not at her
or about her
(as others did)
or down to her

but with her
in a duel thing
he and she

kind of exchange
she ate slowly
the food almost
making her gag

getting stuck
in the throat
she held onto

the image of him
in her mind tried
to focus
on his outline

on his features
his words
taking each one

she could remember
and turning it over
in her mind
as if it were

a rare gem
girls your age
what are you now?

14 yes 14years old
ought not to diet
her mother said
breaking into Elaine's head

if I see you not eating again
I'm taking to the doctors
Elaine looked up

and put on
her good daughter face
that I'll do
whatever you want features

and John had placed
a hand by her head
at the school fence

his arm brushing softly
against her hair
and he never said anything
unkind about

her dark hair
or the metal grips
her mother made her wear

and her mother rattled on
but Elaine just returned
her innocent girl
stare.

02.09.13

You, pretty girl, said I’ll never understand how much you love me. But, I don’t know why you love me like you do. What I actually think is; why? I’m nothing special. You could have any boy and I’m just another guy in a band.

But, in another way, I do understand. I know youre hopelessly head-over-heels. And I cant explain how much you mean to me. You are the reason why my dream is now become a reality. You are the reason of the smile on my face.

Believe me, when I said “I love you!” I mean it with all of  my heart. I found it silly that you spend your teenage years thinking about me more than your beautiful self. You said “You are my sunshine” “You saved me” but then you said “He doesn’t even care” “Why did I keep trying” and I don’t understand.

You are everything I want in a person, why are you so sad? Pretty girl, you are my sunshine. I want you to be happy, you mean the whole world to me. Don’t even say I said this to earn attention because I meant every single word I said. You like me, I like you. Its simple.

One day, I’ll find a girl and she might be special. But you’ll always be on my mind. I don’t want you to waste your time on me. You’ll fall in love again, you’ll love him. And I’m okay with that, princess. Youre so beautiful of course any boy will fall fot you. Don’t worry about me. The memory of me will soon fade away. Maybe one day you’ll laugh when you think of me and your heart will flutter, a bit, for me. But mine always skips a beat for you. You are gorgeous and I cant describe how much I want to hold you and whispers sweet nothings into your ear. But I cant. You will find someone that can do that and when you do, please hold him tight.

Find someone who can replace me. Find someone who makes your heart race. Pretty, stunning, gorgeous, beautiful girl, you bring a smile to my face everytime I think of you. Please think of me. Smile like I know you do. And take a deep breath.
I love you, you know that.

she was a paper girl:
her thoughts were written across her face
and she could crumple
quite easily

sometimes she could fold herself neatly
into little squares
so that all seemed good and
organized and
right

but if you were to unfold her, the words would come rushing at you like a tidal wave and you’d drown in the alphabet soup of her soul

for you my dear
I am an Autumn leaf
carelessly falling
without a sense in
my mind.

I will take this. I have to.
Even if it breaks me.
Even if it breaks me into a million pieces that nobody can put together again.

And it has.

It has broken me into so many fragmented pieces; I’m now what they refer to as

“damaged goods”

Something so traumatic, I’ll never be normal again.
Normal is a thing of the past.
This is what’s happening now.

Broken pieces.

Everywhere.

Every time I fix a piece, another breaks. I feel like I’m holding myself together with tape and glue and it’s not going to be enough. I don’t know what else to say, but it’s too much and it's not enough. All at the same time.

It’s like screaming without a voice.

They said there’d be waves.
They essentially promised.
They said that these waves of sadness would come and go. That happiness would slowly seep back in.

Weaving its way into the oscillating patterns of a heavy heart.

But there haven’t been any waves.
They were wrong.

Instead the pain is dull. It is constant.
But most of all, it’s there. It's there all the time.
The constant part is the worst. The only thing I could relate it to is fire.

It’s like somebody running through a fire has it easier. Sure they’ll get burned but the point is that they get to run through.

They get out.

This though? This is like getting caught in the fire and not making it through. This is like a permanent residency in my own personal hell and at some point I really need the fire to be put out; the pain to stop.

It has to. There’s only so much a girl can take. It’s like somebody has their dark hand engulfing my heart and they’re squeezing it every day and no matter how I plead, they’re refusing to let go.

It’s the greatest sadness I have ever known and it is depleting me emotionally and physically.
I. Am. Too. Weak.

Everybody keeps saying how strong I am. They have no idea. It’s like I’m the world’s greatest actress and I’ve fooled them all. All they see is somebody taking bad news well.

But nobody takes their entire earth shattering “well”.
And my earth has shattered. The death of my brother at the age of 21 has shattered me.

There’s not one thing I wouldn’t give to go back and hug him just a little longer at the airport three days before he died. It was just supposed to be his last semester at college. Not the end of a life time.

There are too many broken pieces. The jagged edges cut my hands. I can’t pick them up.

And so now all I can do is pray. With my forehead to the ground and my faith in God I will pray. Pray the pain away in hopes that one day, the happiness is real. And the tears stop.

In hopes that one day, I can go on without him.

So I’ll pray.

In adverts for chocolate and sweet companies,
the thin pretty girl seductively
consumes
a bar of chocolate,
or the hunky male model
gets the girl
with a Mars Bar in his perfectly carved hand.

What you don't see,
is the tear stained faces of the chubby guys and girls,
the ones with an endless cavern of hunger that no amount of
consumption
can ever fill,
the painfully skinny guys and girls, skinnier even than the
pretty faces in the adverts,
desperately turning their mouths into an abyss of thick
sickly brown,
before forcing it out of them again, like a perverse sort of
waterfall.
The endless sadness,
and need,
and starvation,
and greed,
that leaves them even more hollow and engorged with shame and pain,
than whatever they seem on the outside.

The adverts are just a candy wrapper.

Your heart belongs to me,
I clench to it; in the palm of my pale cold, hands.
I feel myself holding onto something that is not mine,
and will never be. (I let go.)  
My mind floods with unanswered questions;
suffocating... I gasp; struggling to breathe.
Why must you cause me so much misery and pain? Yet I find myself doing the same.

The smell of burnt goodbyes
and strawberries
surrounded her

Battle scars displayed
down her arms
up her legs
across her hips

The smile on her face
didn't match
the blue in her eyes
and the red on her skin

She had lost the war
Her mind turned purple
and it all went black