↳ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.

xxvi

my body has never been mine. but i dress it and sit beside it,
     or just behind-

the way my brain can cut itself in two. the way an empath walks the hallway, reads concern on unfamiliar faces with no power to change course. 

i am twenty and have decided to cut myself up. 

to play the new song of myself. 

the thin veil of health - the reason i am bribed to tame my body. good girls are always in control. 

one can of green beans, salt to taste. a protein shake, and on good days, tomato paste. toast, no butter. water, no tea. repeat to become invisible. 

repeat to finally be seen. 

my body. a body. a thing to ribbon like a 4H hog
and the magazines agree: it must be altered, carved up. 
     here, the taste of thanksgiving is somewhere 
          between sadness
               and fury. 

i eat my own cardboard beside buttery pies and glazed meats. here
i am made of embarrassment, where words are loudest

when unspoken. i appear as through the optometrist's tool
of the family that asks: "one or two?" one... or two? none;
     i'm not hungry. 

meanwhile i am told i can still suck the saccharine marrow out of life
that carnal, corporate salt-fat

through discipline, all things are possible. 

i have decided to cut myself up;
to become,
     finally.