zero

xxvi.

dear oliver,
now i’m seventeen and still
fat. look at me, oliver. don’t you
see the pain, the suffering, the hatred
i have for myself? why must you add to
this?

you didn’t even know that on my sixteenth
birthday, with knives in my arms, i ended up
in the hospital after they discovered too
many pills tucked deep into my stomach.

and they never even wondered: will she
be okay?

oh, no, oliver. why would they wonder
such a petty thought?

instead they wonder: how come
we never saw it coming?

maybe because you were too
busy to care. too hidden behind society's
madness to understand the
bruises were done by the girl who smiled and
said, "i'm fine."

her ship went down, beneath the earth,
down into the rhythm of sound. dressed in
white clothes, her wishing wedding dress,
she swallowed the pills to soothe her empty
stomach; took one too many and ended up

DEAD.

if only.

quinn