I don’t mean to undermine your confusion
I don’t know how it feels like when your body is not your body
Every morning when you wake up
Do you feel something is lost or mismatched?
Do you walk towards the mirror and scream in anguish?
“Something is lost, but it was never there in the first place!”
Do you tell people “this is me, but it isn’t me”
You walk through every aisle, looking for an item that fits you
But how do you know what fits, when you have no idea of you
I so want to understand
I want to ask you abcde but worried you might see it as wxyz
I am ill for the third time this month
Not sure if its caused by the heat or the curiosities

This poison you feed me
This head wound
Inflicting and compounding;
You will never understand

You size me up
In funhouse mirrors,
Tape measures all stretched out
Because you hate me
And so I cry

I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry I’m so big
I want to be small
Teach me to be small
Or, instead,
Teach me not to have a face
So you do not see me anymore
Please

The sweetness of a dehydrated body,
Tired, weak, blameless,
Addicted
Downing only buckets of saccharine hatred
It smells like cancer and bubblegum,
And that’s just as well

It tastes like
Blood

I struggle so deeply
to feel at home in my body,
all I feel when I look at my chest
is all of the men that used me like a doll
of my mom shaming me in my head
for my *******
and how "provocative " I am
for just existing,
for society sexualizing me,
for all the women that hated me for my body/looks,and objectified me
and all the men that "loved"  me /used me just for my body and sexualized me
with their eyes.

It hurts  so deeply to feel so violated  all the time
it echoes in my mind,body and soul
all the repeated violations words, looks and all the aching laughter,
the way everyone  in my family
sexualized me since I was a child,
so intern I internalized all the hatred to my body and my chest.

I just wander if these people  truly understand
how much their actions truly affect others,
how deeply I suffer with complex post trauma all the time
and dysphoria sometimes,
from the deep pain of ****** violence

when I truly look at it all,
its not even wanting to be a man
so much so , as wanting to be seen as a person.

who is worthy of being heard,
not because I am pretty ***** or curvy
or hot or ****,
but because I am smart I am strong
I am  impressive  and resiliant
have a beautiful mind
and I am not just how I look
or how I present.

My whole life I was influenced and taught to believe
that my only value as a women
was my looks,
or to be chosen by a  man or by my society,
and to exist as a  baby making machine,
while not complaining or being "too much ".
That I shouldn't show my body too much , & that I should always look good 24/7,like I am a doll of some kind, instead of a human being.

How my body was the reason for men sinning
and how I would go to hell for my thoughts or behaviors
if I wasn't perfect.

Now I am realizing none of that truly matters,
and I don't wanna live the rest of my life
chasing validation,
or feeling like I need others approval to feel whole inside,
I wanna accept who I am
love who I am
and like myself for who I am,
and not just for my looks or for my body or sexuality,
but for who I am down to my core
the good and the seemingly bad imperfections
to feel safe in myself and that is beautiful to just be me
without needing to put on a show for anyone.

Pink athletic shorts
Bursting at the seams
With all this new body
Hips and waist and ***
You said
“It’s about time to retire those don’t you think?”
2 months later
They hang loosely past my hip bones
Hiding the body that dissolved
The person who is no longer there
And I’m glad I kept them
So they could swallow me whole

Write a lament on the fake bathroom tile,
where you waste your father's hard earned money.

As you throw it up in disgrace of your body
and throw your hunger right back in his face,
tell him he's not done enough for his family.

Watch where the truth gets you when you're not allowed to lie.

~ A.M, F.H.

The reflection in the mirror
returns me a sad and forced smile,
the dried-up hair barely catching the light,
and those brown eyes sinking like holes in the ground.

Who could love that face?
With its rough features,
its coarse skin and bent nose.
A pyrrhic beard and that weak chin.

And what about those arms, huh?
Long and thin like church candles,
but with no flare.

Not much of a chest either,
there are gravestones with more bulk,
and people are far happier to see them too.

But above all it’s the barrenness that scares me,
the sinkholes run deep and the candles cold,
and the gravestones go down to the foundations of the world.

The reflection in the mirror returns me.
Nothing

When I have no mirror
And my thoughts run free
I am suddenly a monster
and no longer me

When I'm surrounded by a crowd
My bones splinter out
My elbows bend backwards
And my voice is a shout

Though I know it's not true
I know I'm no beast
Voices race through my head
And greedily they feast

I'll bend over forwards
To cave into my chest
To make myself smaller
So maybe they'll rest

And when I'm finally home
No that cant be
In the mirror I look
Unable to see

Who is that kid
Whose eyes I see
How pretty he is
But that's not me

It's a tale as old as time,
Like a fine wine that's aged.
Getting more bitter, rather than sweeter.

I look in the mirror. My reflections stares back at me.
The edges blur and fizzle, waiting to reveal, to see.
The face in the mirror resembles my face, only less clear.
Instead she looks at me, eyes wide with fear.
She snarls her nose, growls and hisses.
I look back, in time, she reminisces.
About the days we would share the same face.
About a time, we lived in the same place.

Now she shouts, WHAT DO YOU WANT?
I scream, she continues to haunt.
Why don't you like me? What's so wrong?
YOU ARE WEAK, I SHOULD BE STRONG.

I look away, count to three.
Ground my feet, think of me.
I am not weak.
I look at her again. I am NOT weak,
I say with a look so bleak.
YOU ARE she judges,
JUST LOOK AT YOU, she begrudges.

I bite my nail, look away again.
I try to hide the pain.
The girl in the reflection laughs and chortles
YOOU ARE FEEBLE, just like all mortals.

I AM NOT! I scream. I AM ME AND WHO ARE YOU TO SAY?
THAT I AM JUST SOMEBODIES PRAY?
But look at you, getting defensive against your own reflection
You could say it's merely a deflection,
Of your self worth
You might as well be a still birth.
You bring no value to this world.
She spits the words, lips curled.
I HATE YOU.
I HATE YOU TOO.
OH BOOHOO POOR ME POOR YOU.

I collapse on the floor,
I can't take much more.
What will the next face bring?
I rise from the abyss,
I can barely withstand this.

The next face is kinder.
Another meek body behind her.
Who are you?
I ask askew.
I am you, and you are me.
Let me show you what I can see.
I see a person whose been through a lot.
Every-time they get back up, down they are shot.

I nod cautiously, is this a trick?
Quickly she'll be coming back, I'll be quick.
There's many faces that you can see,
Be it you, us or me.
I understand the torture you hold inside,
Let it go, be free, we want to take your side.
But how? I cry, tears falling of my cheek.
Keep going slowly, week, by week.
I nod slowly, I cry a lot more.
My arms are shaking my throat is sore.
I can't keep fighting, the monster in my mirror.
Every day she keeps coming nearer.

That's okay, you will see.
One of these days you will be me.
And the little girl hiding behind you?
It's another face of you know who.
I shakily nod, and enquire,
Why she's hiding, as if about to transpire.
She's hiding from the face in the mirror.
Just like you, it's becoming clearer.
We don't like what we can see.
I don't like it anymore please believe me.
I know, I know, my reflection says.
But please let it be just a haze.
The girl in the mirror stood before you.
You can choose what she does do.
It's a hard rope to walk, and I walk it well.
I know it's hard, for you to tell,
But you have a choice, a voice, a speech and sound.
It's hard when she's screaming, I feel drowned.
Shush now, it will be alright.
I can't keep fighting this ****** fight.
I feel so tired, exhausted and spent.
I know, I'm sorry but it's time we both went.

I stare at my reflection. She stares back at me.
Eyes brown, hair soft, no expression to see.
She doesn't blink. I don't too.
We are now the only two.
Blankly looking out at me.
Wishing that we both were free.
Who are you? I mouth at her,
She copies me with silence despair.
I don't know and **** my head.
She does too, heavy as lead.
I'm so drained, she echoes my words.
Is she mocking me, like mocking birds.
She scrunches her nose, as do I.
We nod to each other and say good bye.

I avoid the mirror the next day or two.
Hiding from the reflection, keeping out of view.

This useless meat sack. I am the thing watching behind the eyes of this empty meat sack. I am the one piloting this sausage of a body, directing it to walk, talk, smile.
Sometimes I wish that I could reach into my chest and tear it open. I want to rip and tear and slice past the epidermis, watch the white fatty cells and veins and arteries moving. I want to see white, bone-white, a cage for my useless heart. Watch my heart pump like those sheep hearts we used to dissect in science. I remember how they looked, white fat clinging like ivy, and greying in the cool room of the labs. Nothing but a cold, clammy lump of flesh. Maybe death smells like the butchers. Like bleach that can’t cover the festering smell of rot and ammonia.
I’m heavy on my ankles. I remember the last time I starved, and I felt as if I could fly, balanced on my tip-toes, poised to fall. And maybe falling felt just as good.
It’s so unbearably soft. My chest, my arms. I can feel my cheek meat. Fat on bones. Scrape it out with a spoon like pork cheeks, soft, tender, delicious.
A chrysalis. A cut-out, a hollow man wearing hollow shoes doing hollow things. How did that pupa feel, I wonder, trapped in darkness? No way out but forward. The growing pains, tendons and bones and muscles warping. Twisting and crawling but transforming, little by little. Into what, you can’t possibly imagine. The uncertainty, it’s almost as bad as the darkness. No change even when you open your eyes, like colours have frozen into little dizzying pixels. You can’t stop, but do you want to? On the precipice between weakness and a terrifying something else, what can you be but monstrous? Not one or the other but neither.
What are you turning into? A butterfly? A monster? Neither?
You can’t stop.