I.
We pricked our fat, pink fingers, bonded by blood. Still,
I search for signs of sisterhood, for
white-line ladies who white lie like I. Who grew tired of
waiting to shrink away again, who sink in
girlhood’s shallow end, who learned so early to pretend
they cannot tell where they begin and their illusions swallow them.
II.
I called my body too many names for ugly and
now it doesn’t trust me.
III.
We were not meant to be this thin, this small,
this hateful towards all that we are, to see
ourselves disjointed parts, hatchling hearts that beat
too fast to last.
We were not meant to brick ourselves away, make
homes of bathroom stalls and pray the hunger wouldn’t stay,
not meant to crave that empty ache, to fake
dirty dishes and skip lunches and perform punishment crunches,
pretend to love this cycle of restriction and denial, to
face the scale like a trial, to grow familiar with the taste of bile and
the feeling of knees upon cold tiles, the cavitied smiles, the rotting teeth,
the relief of loosening jeans.
IV.
My hair fell out and my legs turned blue,
veins shining through.
How to love a home that can no longer sustain you.
Charlotte Knowles-Cutler