Life Float

I can’t live without hope

Hope is the air in my lungs

the blood in my veins

the colors in my iris

the flush on my cheeks

hope keeps me alive

because in a society

where I’m constantly told to

be this or

be that

that I need to be skinny to be pretty

in a society where I’ve listened

to its vile and poisonous lies

and starved myself until I was

a wisp of what I had been

a has-been,

a washed out sack of water

a bunch of electrical and chemical reactions

with nothing left to do

because I couldn’t live without hope.

In a hospital where emaciated souls

wandered around like ghosts

where hope was like the thin veil

between life and death,

where girls and boys were carted off to the e.r.

on the daily

because their hearts

had no hope left to keep them pumping

I was one of the lucky ones

who held on to hope

like clinging to a life float

on a flimsy, thin rope

I made it out because I had hope

that even though I was dying

maybe

just maybe

I could live again

and regain everything I had lost

all the relationships,

all the love,

the normalcy

of being a teenager

maybe I could mend the broken relationship

I had with food

maybe I could eat again-

live again

maybe for once I could be happy.

And it was hope

that kept these ideas afloat

sitting pretty on top of the sea

that was my tumultuous emotions and please

for the love of god

do not take hope away from me

lest I should wither back into the cage

of my apparent and bare ribs.
I can’t live without hope

because hope keeps me alive

each and every day that I fight for my life

it is hope that keeps me going,

is the battery charging my remote,

and puts air in my lungs

pumps blood to my heart

is the color in my irises

is the flush in my cheeks

and the smile on my lips.

I can’t live without hope

because a life without hope

is death.