are they staring at me?
laughing at me?
my head hurts
“always in that dang room”
i don’t like me anymore
“get off your phone”
i didn’t eat lunch today
“you’re so skinny”
not enough
“gorgeous girl!”
am i tho?

Walking and writng work in tandem
Even in intense heat and pouring rain
Could be a word or phrase
A memory
It is needed and necessary because it works for me
That is why I leave music home
Silence the mobile phone
Never really alone

i forgot what i looked like.
or maybe i never knew.
maybe i've only ever been
a pile of edits
a draft that never made it to final form.
too many versions—
none of them true.

but all of them hated.
every.
single.
one.

i watched myself
like a villain watches the hero
waiting for the failure.
my eyes burned holes
in every reflection
with rage
or fear
or something worse—
that quiet, creeping disgust
that never announces itself
but settles in your bones
like mold.

my body shifted.
again.
again.
again.

the scale moved.
the mirror warped.
the lines on my face turned corners
i don’t remember drawing.

i became
a blur.
a glitch.
a shape i didn’t sign off on.

and standing there,
what’s left—
just a sad mountain
of a hopeless woman
whose only consistent feature
is her pain.

those eyes,
always those eyes.

a flicker of hope once—
turned
to shame
turned
to silence
turned
to a stare
that says
"you’re still not enough."

but those eyes?
i’d know them anywhere.
i’d recognize that hurt
in any body
on any planet
in any lifetime
and still
call it
me.

you noticed that his room was becoming messy.
"lazy."
you noticed that he had stopped showering.
"disgusting."
you noticed that he had started talking less.
"he's just going through a phase."

but you never noticed how his short sleeves turned into baggy hoodies.
you never noticed that he had stopped eating.
you never noticed that the happy little boy you used to have was leaving.

you never noticed it was getting bad
until it was almost too late

Gargantuan slack-jawed
hunchbacked
creature pours itself over the seams of its dresses and kills flowers as it
drags pale soles across the eggshells
littering the ground.

We must starve it;
We must **** it;
When it looks in the mirror it cracks it.

Then heinous beast
no more shall feast
and emaciated it shall become.
A shell of a thing, a carcass in fact,
the meat falls off the bone,
but its brain is still intact.

Poor thing.
Warped thing.
You wouldn’t think she’s human,
this thing.

merrily through this world we go
purging in every toilet bowl

i yearn for control,
take it into my own hands.
i control the lack of food,
let only my own metal draw red.
‘why would someone do that to themselves?’
i truly don’t understand their lack of understanding,
for it is oh so simple.
there’s no choice.
when the thoughts in your head grow too loud,
they break out,
morph into a multitude of monsters.
whether it be my blade - my oldest friend - or the scale, a newer addition.

surely i have developed Stockholm syndrome,
how else do you make sense of the
comfort, peace, and familiarity
found with my monsters?
thy blade only does showcases my deterioration, it in itself is of no real harm.
that, i must tell myself.

my monsters mean well, surely.

they only mean to help.
i’m begging for the next
“u good?”,
because maybe this time,
i’ll have the courage for honestly.
maybe this time,
my thought may finally
lose.

a long shot,
i’m aware.
but a shots better than a cut any day,
so much nicer,
quicker and simpler.
what a way to go out,
stain the floor forevermore.
really it’s a question of what hue
will coat it for eternity.
royal, majestic maroon,
or busy mush
from deep within my “brain”.
miss having one of those.