I need feminism
because men are more upset about people saying "all men"
than they are about the fact that 1 in 4 women will be ***** in their lifetime.

Not harassed, not catcalled,
*****
And that is not okay.

I need feminism because out of the four women
I speak to everyday
two of them have been *****
and all four of them can't walk to their car
without sticking their keys through their fingers to
feel the slightest inclination of safety.

I need feminism
because the other day in my math class
a student said "She was asking for it"
and the teacher agreed.  

I need feminism
because when my father wasn't drinking
he was telling me to be a man.

I need feminism
because the way my father taught me to treat women
was to get them drunk.
It's not his fault,
he knew no better.

I need feminism
because my father knew no better.

They always told her she was skinny,
'You're like a twig' they used to say,
'You need a good roast dinner' they'd tell her.

She grew up being proud,
Of the way her bones jutted through,
Her pink paper skin.

When she reached 15,
The junk food and pride,
Caught up with her.

By 16 all she saw in the mirror,
Was mountains of fat and rolls upon rolls,
She wondered if they would still call her skinny.

At 16, she began cutting down on meals,
'If I miss lunch, I'll lose a little weight.'
'I don't need breakfast, not to be skinny.'

She can't tell anyone else,
She's the skinny one,
She can't be fat.

They've started noticing now,
The rolls under her tshirt,
They seem to get some satisfaction,
That the skinny girl is fat.

By nearly 17 she cannot stomach more than one meal,
Anymore and she feels sick,
To the pit of her stomach.

Aged 17 she wonders,
If they'd've brought her up the skinny girl,
If they knew how fat she'd get when she grew up.

Aged 17 she wonders how she got so
*******
Fat.

A dream you told me of:
Defusing a time-bomb embedded in the womb of your dead mother.
I don’t know if you were smart enough to flip the failsafe
Or if you indiscriminately yanked wires out, like your dangerous thoughts.

A dream I told you of:
at the midpoint of their parents’ anniversaries, by the ruins of every immortalized
kingdom, she is wearing her mother’s dress and he is too.
“father wanted to castrate or **** me,” he said, conversationally.
they have so much in common. they live the tragedy of armchair **** fantasies,
tend to ****** their own genitals when lost in thoughts of the obstruction of
their desires. (which, really, is pointless
because they don’t desire anything besides fondling their own genitals.)

Blinded Oedipus does not notice
Electra’s concealed ******* dagger. A thousand years between them, yet they’re still children conceived of
Mitigated **** and blood sacrifice for the sake of sailing, and
Defined by deficit from the beginning; her crippled mind sang
to his hollowed eyes. Kinslayers becoming kin,
Entranced by the illusions of the other but really
Loving only the unmistakable reflections of their own sins.

I saw my bruises on my knees sitting naked in the bathtub with the shower on
You showed me yours-we matched
I was purple where you pushed me and my knees hit the bannister
I missed the stairs by that much.
You were red and scabbed where your knees hit the carpet when you collapsed
when it hit you that you hit me
We still hated each other
Spitting acid from our tongues
We threw words for years-intent to hit
But that was the first time
Any one of us threw fists in the forms of palms
We always talked about it
4AM November morning? evening? night?
The hours blur together
through slinging slurs of fire I can still feel them on my skin
chemical burns-you had a way with words
“useless ****” is carved into my forearms
and across my chest
it will scab over and you will pick it off
Eventually
With sentences strung together out of decency
The honesty I wanted to believe
We were throwing punches with our mouths
the way the words just rolled out
“You’re ******* crazy” just sort of felt
like the right thing to say
To cut a little deeper than I had to
This battle was purely literally
Well recorded over facebook chat bubbles-incoming text messages
too late-too early phone calls that say:
“You’re a ******* liar-
I can’t believe this-
I love you-
come back.”
But it hit you that you hit me
and my knees were purple for a week

step number one: read the book wintergirls.
tuck away every detail like you're cramming for a test.
dog-ear the pages and carry it with you like a travel guide.
decide that with your fingers and toes always icy cold for as long as you can remember,
you were destined to be a wintergirl.
reread it periodically, for inspirational purposes.

step two: download the myfitnesspal app.
use it to track every calorie you put into your body.
memorize that an oreo has seventy calories, an apple has one hundred, a cup of hot chocolate has eighty,
a bagel has two hundred seventy (a number that terrifies you),
and on and on and on.
let numbers float behind your eyes just before you go to bed,
and let them stay there as you throw off the covers to do guilty pushups and situps in your room
for twenty minutes (burning one hundred and twenty calories).
ignore the warnings shouted at you in red text
when you eat less than twelve hundred calories per day.
look at the projections it gives you for five weeks from now
with weights that seem both too small and too large at the same time.
when your net for the day hits the negatives after weeks of trying,
feel the slightest pang of satisfaction.

step three: find your "thinspiration".
make a tumblr just to look at pictures of jutting-out spines and thigh gaps and ribs.
hold your phone up next to your reflection in the mirror
and pick out everywhere your body differs from hers.
when the girls on the fitness blogs start looking too heavy for your goal,
find the eating-disorder blogs.
obsess over their bodies almost as much as you obsess over yours,
but not quite as much.

step four: begin losing weight.
imagine yourself floating away, feather-light.
imagine yourself becoming skin and bones.
imagine this as you drag your heavy body from class to class,
as your muscles waste from malnutrition.
imagine this as you have to clean your hairbrush out
three times while you work tangles from your hair.
imagine this as you snap at anyone and everyone,
as you spend hours locked in your room.

step five: become a poet and write about yourself.
romanticize your own demons, just by calling them demons.
use as many metaphors as you can,
to avoid the harsh language of the truth.
and especially avoid writing about the crippling guilt
that hits you when you eat too much,
you're fat you're worthless you'll never be anything,
and hits you when you don't eat enough,
what's wrong with you how did you let it get to this point
voices in your head never abating.
avoid writing about your lack of motivation and constant exhaustion and always,
always, use words that imply mystery.
describe your mind as foggy, call your body diminishing.
never say it how it is, because you could convince yourself to quit.
never say that it's torture and you're in pain
and you just wish you were eight again, never considering this path.
never say that you need help but you don't want help.

if you have the urge to say these things,
say only that this disorder is not one you would willingly give up,
because you finally have something to control.
because it is the truth,
but it is also the romanticized truth.