I was hurrying, my mind tied up in lace,

Saw the pale pink trace on the white.

Like a flower, delicate, sprung up in a ward,

Ready to decompose the moment it starts.

A ball of tension unravelled, drifting

Like paper in the water, softly,

Tears clouded off, gently, purposefully;

Months, years, of anger, desperation, evaporated

Leaving a blotch, like tea on my desk

The outside edges darken, the inside wears away.

Things fall apart, the center will not hold.

Shame, deep shame, shame that rips off hunks of

Pancreas, mangels you intestine, pumps acid

Into your heart until you claw and tire and see

Rose-stained white.

It was the first year, where I looked back

Not with a sadness, or gladness for the new,

But with content. This culminates

An odyssey, of sit-ups on the bathroom floor

Your tailbone digging into the fake tile,

Of doctor’s offices, legs dangling off the bed,

Your white paper gown gaping, ripping of your gaunt frame.

Thin. Skinny. Underweight. I feel like throwing up

Those words that dig into my temples

And my stomach, tightening, squeezing,

It echoes through my brain, hugging its contours

Zapping the center with shocks of electricity,

Slender, weak, artificial, but potent.

An odyssey of leg gaps and scales,

Of doubts in my mind everytime I step in the gym.

Use that anger, that animal rushing that powers me

Through my intervals on the elliptical. And through

The menu when it tells me the calorie count.

No avocados, thanks, or extra cheese.

Now I know it’s coming up again, and I meet my dad

And we go to a café and I order the salad and I cry.

I cry for what I’ve lost and I cry for the beatings

I will take when I step on the scale and I haven’t improved;

I cry for the others, I know they’re out there,

I judge them when I see them, hatred fills my guts,

And yet I know we’re no different.

If you’re fat, you should work harder,

If you’re skinny you’re a freak, and so

I ask myself if I will ever be able to make it,

If I will ever be able to eat again.

It seems silly now, now it seems unimportant.

But: the pain was real. I carry it, everyday,

When I look in the mirror, and feel the fat on my thighs.

It’s not a bad thing, just different. Smoother,

Warmer, not an obsession but a fascination.

The rose will bloom, darker, scarlet, crimson,

Oxblood, burgundy, more brown now,

And then gone. A chapter, sealed in my ruddy hands.