vomit ⁽ᵀᵂ ᵉᵈ⁾

i love you like a wound loves the hand

that just won’t stop touching it

obsessive, pulsing, inflamed

*

you smile and i almost forgive the architecture of my damage,

almost believe i could live inside something soft

*

how dare you be gentle.

*

i resent your kindness to me. your thoughtful words

you know nothing of what i do, how i think

*

i scream instructions on how to hold me correctly

and resent you for needing them

*

i am starving for something bitter and cruel

i have been starving since i was young.

*

i am six years old and my mommy stands in front of the mirror, bra and sweatpants on

i sit quietly on the bed

she dissects herself in front of me, picking apart every bit of disgusting fat.

"come do my workout! i don't want you to look like me."

i am six years old. i am never enough and always too much. far too much.

*

ten years later my ribs are bigger than my stomach until i learn to eat again

and again

and again

at 18 my body looks just like hers.

*

i see myself and feel disgust

i force the hunger to come back.

i force my fingers down my throat.

*

my reflection ripples, turning into an echo of her.

i sharpen the blade she handed me.

i desperately try to make myself smaller and my body begs for a mercy i refuse to give

please god make me beautiful again.

*

my rage turns inward and i spit it back up again (into the dorm bathroom as my roommate sleeps)

*

i carry my anger in my teeth and my fists

it festers and grows and claws its way out

*

i am angry at you for what you do

i am angry at my mother for what she does not

angry at myself for allowing it to get this way.

*

it never leaves, just changes shape

it burns out until nothing noble remains

nothing at all.

not in my stomach. not in my heart.

*

my rage dissipates into numbness

the wind whips ice into my eyes and i do not flinch

i simply continue to stare at the wall

*

i was designed to ache

to shrink

*

everything collapses into the same place

*

you stand beside me with warm hands trying obnoxiously to love a dog that won't stop biting

*

my mother's missed calls pile up with the numbers on the scale

*

and my anger - threaded through everything

turning love to friction

mother to pain

body to enemy

rage to silence.

*

i love you badly, hate myself well

i burn through every quiet moment, the end nowhere in sight

*

it's all the same hunger at the core.