Perfect Bones

My skin hangs weightlessly off my bones,

like an old shirt on a clothes hanger.

My stomach feels no hunger,

it no longer knows what hunger is.

My throat burns,

from all the times I spewed my stomach’s remnants.

My teeth rot,

the gastric acid wiping away the enamel...

yet my teeth are what remind me of the pain, the gain

I feel satisfaction

Pure satisfaction from my starvation

When I walk the runways

Collarbones sticking out a mile long

Legs like thin railways

I see satisfaction

They label me. Them.

The critics. The doctors.

They say,

“Anorexic.

Bulimic.

Hideous.”

But I don’t listen to them.

But the others, they love me.

The designers. The models.

They say,

“Beautiful.

Perfect.”

Sometimes I hear that I could be thinner.

Then my hunger…

withers…

No one understands,

I’m still not good enough.

I made this choice from the start but

They’re the ones, who made me this way,

And they can’t turn me back.

Because no one sees what I see,

I’m still insufficient.

I know it.

And, still

I’ll never, ever be enough.

I’ll never be,

Perfect.