Survive: Collected Poems

Haunted

My bed frame is older than the civil war, and used to be in a West Virginia house used as a civil war hospital.
I used to think that union amputees and victims of yellow fever were its only ghosts.
As I have grown up, I realize most of the ghosts are my own.

The ghost of six year old me, sleeping in her new bed
In the new room she and her dad
Had just painted together.
Supposed to be asleep
But had stayed up reading,
And now has her head buried
In her mountain of stuffed animals
To drown out the names
That dad is calling mom.

The ghost of eight year old me,
Running her hands over
Her still flat chest,
Words running through her head
As she remembers being called
A lady for the first time
At the library that day.
She knows her body is not ready
To be devoured by the eyes of men.
She knows it will never be ready
But there is nothing she can do.

The ghost of nine year old me,
Knowing that for the first time
She will not be woken by the sound
Of her dad making lunch before
Leaving for work at sunrise.
She accidentally cut herself
On a thorn while picking
Wild blackberries that day,
And she liked the way it made
The sorrow flow out of her.
She smuggled a safety pin
From the junk drawer into her room,
Hoping less sorrow would make her
Feel lighter in the morning.

The ghost of ten year old me,
Graduated from safety pins
To small knives and scissors
And pencil sharpeners, and
Anything on hand, really.
She plans to tell her mom tomorrow
That the blood on the mattress
Is from her period,
Which she really finished yesterday.
She stresses over packing a suitcase
To spend the weekend with her dad,
Stresses over the lies he will tell her,
Stresses over whether she will have
To hide her scissors in the suitcase lining.
To hide her worry, she draws -
One more line on porcelain skin,
And loses herself in Harry Potter
For the 6th time.

The ghost of eleven year old me,
First told this week that her thighs
Were too big and her stomach
Too thick and her cheeks too round.
She was barely over 100 pounds.
Just got in bed, still shaking after
Pressing on her throat until she
Threw up her dinner without
Knowing why she even did it.
She draws lines on her skin again,
The shaking making her clumsy,
But not even caring about
The extra mess to clean up.
After all, what doesn't kill you
Makes you stronger.
Or simply more afraid.

The ghost of twelve year old me,
Pretending to have eaten, and
Pretending to not have deep
Gashes along her arms, and
Ignoring all her needs to study
For the quiz team she only panics over
Because everyone says she's so good and so smart
That she'll work herself to death
To hide them from the truth.
In fact, if she can go to any means
To hide all her flaws from them, she will.
So her lines get thicker and her
Hips get thinner and her hair gets brittle
And she takes entire bottles of
Painkillers at night
And she only gets more desperate
When she wakes up each morning.

The ghost of thirteen year old me,
Skinny and now unable to eat a
Normal meal or a sweet treat
Without her stomach rebelling.
Her arms so scarred and
Her body so deprived
That she can no longer carry
The stacks of books she takes outside
To fill her days reading.
She lied to her friends because
She wanted to seem good enough,
And it pushed them all away,
So she only learns to label herself
A monster.
Her bed misses her,
Because she spends her nights
At the computer and the television,
Losing herself in fiction and hoping
That her body will give out
If she takes away another vitality.
She meets a girl who lives
Unbelievably close to her.
"Where have you been all my life?"
She asks the girl.
"You didn't know each other for a reason,"
Her bed whispers as she finally
Lets herself sleep.

The ghost of fourteen year old me,
More panicked than ever
Because she has realized that
She does not love
Who the world wants her to love.
Her bed tells her it is okay, but
That the devil disguises herself
As the friend and the love
She has always wanted.
But she is finally not alone,
So she ignores the cautions
Her bed gives.
A few months later,
She is being held down
On that same bed,
Violated by the girl she trusted
With everything.
This ghost has no bittersweet ending.
Only bitterness forever.

Eighteen year old me,
Laying in the darkness,
Wondering why she didn't listen
To the sage advice given to her
By the civil war ghosts of her bed frame.
The numbness seeps over her soul.
She runs a finger along the ever cool metal of the frame,
Too stricken to whisper "I'm sorry,"
So she hopes the sorrow
In her fingertips will be enough.
She hopes the ghosts are proud,
For she now bleeds sorrow
Black from her fingertips
Instead of red from her arms.

But some nights,
Her own ghosts overpower
The older ones,
And the bed hurts too much to sleep in.
The mattress has changed,
But the ghosts stay the same.
However, when it comes to the wise ones,
That can be the biggest of comforts.