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.

And it never leaves, it’s always sleeping in your clothes and bed… awful