Fragmentation

Fragment 16.)

(Nine Things They Don't Tell You About The Girl With The Disorder)

1.)
She loves to sing.
But every time she tries to find her song, her pretty bird vocal cords break & she perches back onto her lonely branch.
2.)
She really needs someone to hug her. Don't tell her that it'll be okay. Don't say it's going to get better because it doesn't.
Tell her about your favorite memory with her because she needs to remember that not everything shatters & is forgotten.
3.)
She has held a whole person before in her lap. A man who had sheltered her for the longest time, who gave her discount movies & games, had sat contently in her too-young-to-be-at- a-funeral palms in a box no larger than her thigh. & she just sat & listened to people she never knew before say how much they loved him.  That night she slept on the same couch he had died on.
4.)
Her mother doesn't know there is some unwanted house guest sleeping underneath her tongue. Her father has never talked to her about her disorder. No one ever asks about how she is; how she really is. No one notices that she writes about her hollowness on the bus on her way to school. This little monster that keeps playing the drums on her heart and lungs tells her that it's normal for them not to care. Or be worried. She can't begin to explain to you how many times she just wanted to tell someone. How many times she thought of them feeling guilty because there might be a sliver of a chance someone might care. & that makes her want to leave even more.
5.)
She chopped off all of her hair to forget the memories of people who  had loved her. Too short to braid or curl without burning herself, her hair, it sits too high up for anyone to pull. Her heart, she tucks backs into sleeves to avoid the nipping dogs she calls family. A glass door built into her eyes, flood gates. She apologizes to anyone that she left the river in their living room.
6.)
People love her skin for being so soft, clean, & tight. They don't know that her skin tries to pulls itself from her body like touching someone else's food on a plate it is washing. Her skin keeps breaking & leaving canyons on her thighs. & back. Scars are engraved on her body like mocking, pink stamps. Like a toddler playing judge gavel on her legs & arms. Skin peeling away from fingernails, it hurts when trying to touch anything sweeter than the tears staining her round cheeks. Please don't stare.
7.)
Walking down a sidewalk is like walking on burning bones of those who told her she looks weird when she walks like that, those who asked her why she apologizes so much, Her head spins off its axis & plummets to her feet. What's one more kicked, bruised thing? Stepping on her consciousness she apologizes for the stain her bloody thoughts will leave on the pavement.
8.)
When she gets emotional her heart begins to play racehorse, head spins too many times & she gets mixed up, can't speak. Tongue slurs & trips from pigeon toed knees. Shaking. 8.) Shaking. 8.) Tripping. 8.) Choking. Sorry I can't count when  I get emotional. I mean she. She means-...

8.)
I mean I.

9.)
I have lifted an entire tree above my head. Lifted to the clouds & let it take root into my shoulders. Leaves running down my spine, I felt alive. In a small field with fallen trees I was standing. Alive.
& still, I am growing into the clouds.