(no subject)
hannah gains weight the entire time i know her,
which is two years.
she ends up smaller than me, talks about how she's finally learning to accept herself,
even though she's fat now.
she thinks it was good for her to go through this.
julie and i used to be the same size,
until she started running every time she passed a mirror.
now she complains about stores not having small enough clothing for her,
and about her thighs, still several inches wide.
she wonders if she'll ever be thin enough to disappear them.
katie's prominent collarbones have made public her need to be empty.
by august, she's lost ten more pounds
and we flock to trick food down her resistant save me pout.
i have no pity, sitting in the corner,
thought rude because i'm not eating this week
and i can't keep up with your carbohydrated conversations,
because the ten pounds i lost still aren't enough to make me too skinny.
i want to be too skinny.
we have no pity for the in-between,
for those who never make their battle public,
for those who binge between their purging,
spend their whole lives terrified of gravity and still end up
average, and invisible.
i don't have the perfect slender silhouette to make you want to save me,
and i don't pity you yours.
to me, it still looks too much like winning.
i've never been in danger of my heart stopping.
my record for zero calories ingested is a measly 48 hours,
and i've never been below 120 pounds,
or a size 6,
but i'm trying,
doling out calories like i never learned to count past double digits,
pushing pushing pushing sweat through my pores like the fat will drip off with it.
but i also eat cookies at midnight,
the whole box, in the dark, when no one is watching,
and i was also born with these hips that refuse to slope inward
no matter how much i bruise them with anything i can nestle in the curve of my fist
instead of the roof of my mouth.
and i also spend hours watching slender silhouettes dying between windowpanes
in front of the restaurant i work in,
running like pendulums, pedometers ticking,
watch them turn their heads in disgust when they smell garlic,
or cheese melting greasy across dough rising yeastcloud and burnt sugar,
do these words make you salivate?
are you hungry yet?
hannah drinks a bottle of wine for dinner and tells me,
no matter how depressed she's ever been,
she's always held on to the one thought,
directed at anyone who comes between herself and perfection:
at least i'm thinner than you.
at least i have that.
now that her jeans size has doubled in digits,
she doesn't know where her edges are.
she wonders if she has anything else to offer someone.
i have no pity when their imaginations cold shoulder their way into a mirror
that has so much more empty space than my own,
when they hold out shaking fingers and say,
here. keep this as far from my perfectly flat stomach as possible.
i'm captivated by the space between collarbone and breast, beating sos instead of heartbeats.
i never listen.
i'm too busy drinking water every time my stomach rumbles,
losing myself in the absence of curve in their outline,
the way they win your attention every time.
we have no pity for the ones who fail to learn the system,
the ones who aren't capable of achieving full denial,
who instead taunt their stomachs with dreams of concave, hollow,
but never make it past hungry.
i am always hungry.
i am always aching for slender, for tiny, for jutting.
no one cares if you're dying if you do it slow enough,
i'm doing it slow enough,
how many pounds do i have to lose before you pity me?
which is two years.
she ends up smaller than me, talks about how she's finally learning to accept herself,
even though she's fat now.
she thinks it was good for her to go through this.
julie and i used to be the same size,
until she started running every time she passed a mirror.
now she complains about stores not having small enough clothing for her,
and about her thighs, still several inches wide.
she wonders if she'll ever be thin enough to disappear them.
katie's prominent collarbones have made public her need to be empty.
by august, she's lost ten more pounds
and we flock to trick food down her resistant save me pout.
i have no pity, sitting in the corner,
thought rude because i'm not eating this week
and i can't keep up with your carbohydrated conversations,
because the ten pounds i lost still aren't enough to make me too skinny.
i want to be too skinny.
we have no pity for the in-between,
for those who never make their battle public,
for those who binge between their purging,
spend their whole lives terrified of gravity and still end up
average, and invisible.
i don't have the perfect slender silhouette to make you want to save me,
and i don't pity you yours.
to me, it still looks too much like winning.
i've never been in danger of my heart stopping.
my record for zero calories ingested is a measly 48 hours,
and i've never been below 120 pounds,
or a size 6,
but i'm trying,
doling out calories like i never learned to count past double digits,
pushing pushing pushing sweat through my pores like the fat will drip off with it.
but i also eat cookies at midnight,
the whole box, in the dark, when no one is watching,
and i was also born with these hips that refuse to slope inward
no matter how much i bruise them with anything i can nestle in the curve of my fist
instead of the roof of my mouth.
and i also spend hours watching slender silhouettes dying between windowpanes
in front of the restaurant i work in,
running like pendulums, pedometers ticking,
watch them turn their heads in disgust when they smell garlic,
or cheese melting greasy across dough rising yeastcloud and burnt sugar,
do these words make you salivate?
are you hungry yet?
hannah drinks a bottle of wine for dinner and tells me,
no matter how depressed she's ever been,
she's always held on to the one thought,
directed at anyone who comes between herself and perfection:
at least i'm thinner than you.
at least i have that.
now that her jeans size has doubled in digits,
she doesn't know where her edges are.
she wonders if she has anything else to offer someone.
i have no pity when their imaginations cold shoulder their way into a mirror
that has so much more empty space than my own,
when they hold out shaking fingers and say,
here. keep this as far from my perfectly flat stomach as possible.
i'm captivated by the space between collarbone and breast, beating sos instead of heartbeats.
i never listen.
i'm too busy drinking water every time my stomach rumbles,
losing myself in the absence of curve in their outline,
the way they win your attention every time.
we have no pity for the ones who fail to learn the system,
the ones who aren't capable of achieving full denial,
who instead taunt their stomachs with dreams of concave, hollow,
but never make it past hungry.
i am always hungry.
i am always aching for slender, for tiny, for jutting.
no one cares if you're dying if you do it slow enough,
i'm doing it slow enough,
how many pounds do i have to lose before you pity me?