Clean: An Anthology

Dear Mikayla

the last time I saw you
you were seven and I was eight
and you gave me a chart, all drawn up in blue crayon
and told me it was to track what I put in my mouth
every single day, every single meal
because you wanted to be skinny, you said
you wanted to look like a grown up
and to this day, I still don't know why you thought,
young as you were,
that dysfunction is beautiful

when I got home
my mother found it in my jacket pocket
among the gum wrappers and the crumpled up poster
of some teen heartthrob from your magazines
she asked me where did I get this and who gave it to me
and sweetie, didn't I know that I was perfect ?

the last time I saw you,
you were fourteen and I was fifteen
you went up to the front podium in English class
and you read a story about the pain you had
somewhere deep inside your heart, that we would never see
about all of the oceans you had cried and
all of the storms inside your soul
and I don't think you understood the irony of it all,
that you were baring yourself more than I ever could

your pain is palatable, I suppose
your pain is liquid sugar, running through the
multicolored streaks in your hair, onto everyone you love
you are artfully feminine in your obsessions
elegantly glamorous in your anxiety
beautifully disheveled in your depression
you are so unique, so creative, bearing the weight of life
bandages over nonexistent wounds
your life is black and white, a splash of crimson here and there
a perfect canvas of destruction