see you’ve been the sun for so long that i was finally getting rid of this chill in my bones but now i’m in the arctic and i never learned how to stay warm on my own and i’m scared and alone and i don’t know where i’m going all i know is that i want to get back home to where i can bask under your light on sandy beaches and we can look at the constellations once you set and i can tell you their stories, the myths, tucking these notes between your knuckles like these are the only words that will ever exist. i’m trying to remember that you’re more than a metaphor but it’s hard when i’ve spent so much time sitting in my own mind that i’m not sure if i’m anything but pretty words and old scars. you– you have always been everything that could only be encompassed by something else, like something billions of times bigger than either of us could ever be, that’s why you’re the sun in everything. it just sounds like ‘soulmate’ to me.

when was the last time you
looked up at office building skyscrapers
and wondered about all the people inside?

when was the last time you
bumped a stranger on the sidewalk and
said sorry without hearing them or
seeing them or ever knowing their face?

when was the last time a
face appeared in your dreams that you
couldn’t quite place because your brain
automatically keeps a registry of everyone
you’ve ever seen?

when was the last time you
thought about how many three billion is?

when was the last time you
saw a movie that used ‘ringing’ to indicate
silence, because the weight of nothing is
just too heavy to deal with?

when was the last time you
thought about other people having the
same name as you?

fireflies blink patterns of constellations
like glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to your
bedroom ceiling. sometimes,
home is not where we expect it to be.
sometimes you know that you just have
to leave. light a candle at your own vigil,
your own funeral, then take to the sky
on trembling wings. it’s okay: you can
still visit if need be. but the future is not
certain (you never liked tellers of fortune
anyway.) so stick to your runes and
what your dusty old books tell you, words
in dead languages speaking easier
than the tongues around you. maybe
you’re just too stuck in the past-- after all,
most stars are already gone by the time
the light reaches your skies. there’s
nothing wrong with never burning bridges,
but keep the matches in your pocket
just in case.

the fishtank is whispering to me
i tell it i want to go home
the filter shudders a laugh
i am throwing myself against
concrete barriers to feel
blood gasping for breath but
i drown it in the shower
punishing tender flesh with the faucet  
if this place is supposed to be beautiful
no one told my heart
and I feel the weight of my ugliness
in the pit of my stomach
an egg hatching, shredding insides,
fully deserved.

who needs sleep when there are galaxies to be seen
teeming with suns spinning with planets with other lives to be living?
there’s a chill setting in the marrow of your bones
where dead flowers continue to grow, under your ribs
like longing, like homesickness, like fighting a feeling of needing to be
anywhere but this
place, this planet, this universe.
no one will ever know the heartache that lives in the lump in your throat
that grows when you look up and know that there is somewhere else
that you’d rather be. you just don’t have a name for it yet.
it just hasn’t told you its name yet.
maybe in the dusty bindings of old books, you’ll find
the secret to a future set in stars
that always seem just a little too out of reach.
maybe a different sun will be better at warming the cold winter
that long ago set itself up in your body.
maybe a different sun will show you what summer feels like,
the way freedom can feel when you’re free of longing.

it was you and me until it wasn’t anymore--
i’m realizing that state borders are bigger than i thought they were,
that four seven ten hours is a longer drive than it used to be.
it was you and me until it started getting darker earlier.
i’m realizing how dark the sky is when light pollution blots out the stars,
when all i can see is the moon blindingly bright.
it’s the kind of condition that daedalus would’ve wished for,
because if icarus couldn’t see the stars then he wouldn’t have fallen.
i’m realizing how dark dorm rooms are
when there’s no one else there except the solid weight
of loneliness.
i either forget to fall asleep or nod off too early;
it’s not like i have anyone keeping track for me anymore.
i’m realizing how free i used to be, a car and a highway and time,
and i’m realizing how stranded i am now: i’m feeling the freefall
of finding that i’ve lost my feathered wax wings.
it was you and me until i stopped listening, and then it was
just you.
i’m still waiting to hit the water, with bated breath to feel the shatter.
it was you and me--
until it wasn’t anymore.
until there wasn’t any more.

I’m a Barbie girl
in a Barbie world.
Life’s fantastic! I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an 18-inch waist
because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
a neck so slender I have to choose
between eating and breathing;
there’s not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a 38-inch bust and
3-times the average amount of forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine shoe squeezed to a three,
spending three to nine avoiding meal time
because my weight-loss book says,
“Don’t eat.”

I’m a Barbie girl,
in a Barbie world.
Life’s fantastic, but I’m
not plastic.
Bile tastes all too organic,
its taste chasing after me
if I exceed my daily nutritional limit of
2,000 calories.
I’m skinny enough that people think I’m healthy.
I’m not skinny enough for people to think I’m unhealthy.
Anorexia is as familiar as the back of my hand,
poised like a gun to the back of my throat,
waiting and ready to blow.
I’m a sixteen-year-old suicide case,
product of the war of production,
wearing battle wounds in the form of uniform lines
across the tops of my thighs.
I’ve been rewriting this poem since its conception.
I feel like the rough draft: concision is key.
(Be smaller.)
I’m trying rewriting,
trying to leave out things that aren’t
important enough, like:
four of my ribs
and my esophagus
and my stomach
and my small intestine.
I’m testing the limits of realism.
But here’s the thing:
I’m a real girl
in a real world.
Life’s not always fantastic,
but I am not plastic.

I am not plastic.

I refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range
based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
eating and breathing
like both are vital aspects to living.
I refuse to be plastic,
an actual hip-to-bust ratio
for not a thirty-year-old but a teenager.
I refuse to be plastic,
shoe size nine in size nine shoes,
trying to start enjoying mealtimes
because my “weight-loss book”
has been chucked down the chute.
I’m a living girl
in a terrifying world,
trying to remind myself that “Life in Plastic!”
is not fantastic.