Don't be scared,
Be skinny instead.
Become the beauty queen
She always wished you would be.
Lean into the quiet,
Polite,
Fake persona you have.
Hyperfocus on
What they focus on,
Watch as everything else matter less.
Did you eat more?
Work more.
Rinse and repeat.
Your heart may shrink,
But so what?
Forget your absent father.
Walk a little further.
You're risking your body and hair,
Luckily you're on too many pills to care.
Make them like you,
And maybe you'll like yourself.
If they don't want you to die,
You'll stop wanting to die.
Smile,
Stop thinking about your failed suicide attempts.
It hurts,
Tell yourself it's worth it.
Pain is what actually means something,
If it weren't true,
Those things wouldn't have happened to you.
Forget
That it was the ones closest.
Be pretty,
So someone will protect you.
Wither away,
and build your worth.
Your bones will become brittle,
You may even shrink,
In the attempt to shrink.
Sorry you were never much of a queen,
Mental health meltdowns
Failed attempts to make mother proud.
You'll never be a queen,
Not when you're this compulsive at seventeen.
A waste of braces money,
A basket case.
A closet queer who's work
And pain
Just feels like it's going down the drain.
For fuck's sake,
Stop stuffing your face.
Get as thin and fit as you can,
Maybe if you're lucky
The parts adults stare at will shrink,
Maybe you can be so tiny
They stop looking at you at all,
Invisibly safe from judgement.
Talk to the shrink
But never say too much,
You'll embarrass your mother again
She'll give you the side-eye
That makes your face hot.
Ignore your issues,
Write them out of sight
Write them out of mind.
The voices inside don't exist,
You're just embarrassing.
Never eat alone,
No more binging allowed.
Go work out.
Remind yourself of the bad times,
Drive yourself to your goals.
Remember the obesity comments,
From nurses,
From family,
From the world.
No one will find out,
They'll see the results of your labor,
And praise!
No one cares how you lose
As long as you do.
Mom was an anorexic teen
And look at you,
Binging failure.
Why else would she shut down
Any mention
Of how you feel about you?
Don't lie to yourself,
You disgust everyone.
Get back to work.
