My bones

creak and moan,

as if they’ve seen too much,

as if they’ve moved through a world too harsh.

At my last physical,

I apologized to my doctor

for not getting enough exercise.

She said,

Don’t apologize to me.

Apologize

to yourself.

I lost count

of how many years

I let my muscles weaken,

just like she warned.

I promised us both

I’d do better.

Physically inactive,

feeling sorry for myself -

understatements of

four aching decades

of eroded self-esteem.

Another day of resting

my glasses on my notepad,

crawling into bed in daylight.

When life gets heavy,

I need

a soft place to land.

Brittle promises

break in my lying hands,

but they’re stronger than I am -

like cells, they regenerate.

(I keep making them.)

I pull the butcher knife from under my wings,

chop you into pieces that fit in my hands.

I chase you to the end of the earth as you collapse.

I demand a forever you aren’t willing to give.

I convinced myself the world is a monster ready to eat me alive.

I have no choice but to die

or allow outsiders to touch what’s mine.

Bruised vocal cords and bloodshot eyes,

we fell into an early grave,

settled for a false love.

My body has aged,

but my spirit is without wisdom.

After twenty years,

it’s too late to start over.

I never fought for anything,

only for the world I created in my head and claimed,

but you can’t own what doesn’t exist.

When will I fight to the end of the earth for myself?

Live in the world I belong in?

I exist as who I want to be.

I become who I believe I am.

I am the monster,

unless I loosen my grip,

return the pieces I stole,

then I will be

whole on my own.

I'm not browbeat about it, not really.

I may be oblivious, but thats willful. I know. I always know. I'm always right.

And that isn't a nod to my ego, because I wish for a second I could believe what a person says, versus what their eyes are telling me.

So, I am willingly oblivious. Willingly ignorant. Knowing, but not wanting to see.

But a persons intentions, their heart, their soul— it lurks like a wading creature behind the iris. I've seen fae, florals and fawn behind the eyes of a friend that is so genuine and loving. Seen an angel shackled to something blearing in the dark in the eyes of someone who smiles but it never reaches. Seen what I can imagine nirvana is in the eyes of a lover.

Some peoples eyes are so hollow, though, so empty, and that might be crueler then seeing a prowling beast waiting to lunge. Because at least that is hatred. That is passion. But nothingness? To be so completely indifferent? That is the complete absolution of a person's soul. Being selectively empathic, and horribly fake to bide your time.

So when this girl, with nothing behind her eyes leaves with fallacies on her tongue and little to nothing in regard to a person's very soul, no, I cannot act shocked. I cannot be saddened. I will rejoice, that the nothingness didn't take from my own myriad of vision.

For $1.99!

A third of the price of a cup of coffee!

These heartless words swallowed up my artistic freedom

Years of my essence disguised as words

Now caged like a bird

Separated from others of a feather

For $1.99!

A third of the price of a cup of coffee!

You put a cost on literary connections

This was a home to release frustration

Without worries of limitation

It was a sacred space

For $1.99!

A third of the price of a cup of coffee!

You're just another desensitized place

Somewhere across time,

I feel your tender gaze—

quiet, reaching.

Soft forms stir, almost unseen,

As I trace their tender curves,

A quiet ache stirs within me,

In faint spirals and fading coils.

It's only natural.

I see, I said

as you spoke

of sunshine and little trifles, overseas

you talk about the crash of waves

on war torn beaches with stardust

where tourists bronze

and all those finer spots

yet untouched, native green

or naive, I think it's called

I always hated the rain.

Stormy days to me were dreary,

as if the thunder lashed out at me.

I found salvation where my nostalgia lived,

in green grass and blue skies.

I had swallowed the sun since birth,

licking yesterdays off my fingers.

Tonight, I feel a glow, lingering like a pulse.

The mist smells so crisp, so clean,

I ache for a means to wrap up the air and never let go.

The summer rain bathes me

as I unswallow the sun,

and hold my head up to the sky.

I wrap my arms around myself,

skipping and kicking stones.

No hand in mine to feel whole.

I peel off my rain-soaked clothes,

offering my body to drink every drop

of the delicious sky.

I inhale, send a love letter to my breath.

I break down on my knees in the street

and cry myself to sleep.

I open my eyes to a ball of rainbow light

stretched across the tear-stained sidewalk.

Brittle,

cracking

under the cold,

bitter

on my shoulders.

I fold myself in half,

shapeshifting

the bones of my back,

with every sob I swallow.

I suck my thumb,

my age a time bomb

ticking

in my chest.

Rocking myself,

I choke out

the colic screams,

of a woman

I never birthed.

I know you hate to love me.

You wear a smile

on your face

that looks hard to wear.

You play pretend

but I know this love is so fake.

Today little sister cracks open

a second egg and mom’s eyes

dart across the kitchen.

“You are not supposed to eat

more than one egg a day

you know that is far

too much cholesterol.”

The first meal I ate at the hospital

was a two-egged omelette

drenched in cheese.

My mother sat across from me

while the nurses and social workers

retaught her how to feed me.

They told her I was not allowed

to hide cheese under my plate,

or pick off the tortilla shell

and avoid the egg yolk.

They told her there were new rules, now

3000 to 5000 calories a day,

every day

no more sugar-free jello

egg whites

and tea

That night we went to the grocery store

and felt the world tilt upside down.

We walked past the low fat,

no cholesterol

sugar-free

until we hit the goldmine:

poppyseed muffins,

ice cream bars

whole milk

full-fat butter.

Foods that would make my heart beat regularly again

and put life back in my eyes.

Today I tell my mother I think it is fine

for little sister to eat two eggs,

cholesterol be damned.

But she looks me in the eye and says

“It’s different for you.”

This is the same phrase she repeats

when I ask her why she does not want us to cook noodles

for Mother’s Day dinner

or why she is not eating sugar

this week.

It is a phrase which means:

because you showed so much control

that you grew out of control

You are hereby exempt

from the dieting culture

It is a phrase which means,

’I am drawing a firm line

between the South Beach diet

the no-carb diet

the no-sugar diet

the Atkins diet

the You Are Inherently Flawed and in Need of Fixing

diet

and illness.’

Because nobody likes to think about the fact

that perhaps we are all playing with fire

that perhaps the American Dream

(and by this I mean weight loss)

is nothing but a smokescreen.

That perhaps shrinking oneself successfully

does not actually move mountains,

paint your soul in bright gold,

or part the seas.

That perhaps making ourselves disappear

won’t fix the real problems

our good intentions will never

pave the path to heaven.

Tomorrow when I wake up

I am going to breathe in the morning air

and thank the universe for poppyseed muffins,

ice cream bars

whole milk

full-fat butter

I am going to change the world

and fry two eggs for breakfast.