Dear Body,
I am sorry.
I pour alcohol in you like car fuel,
praying that this will make the drive smoother.
I fix you by using boys as band aids.
Hoping that a small piece of felt and one sided tape
will mend a part of me that needs
stitches and surgery.
I use my mental health
as a lazy excuse to check you out as well.
Sometimes I can’t tell you what side I’m on.
I force you to run,
because although I mask you with earrings and necklaces,
I still count that as part of your body weight.
I compare you to other bodies
because when I’m not enough,
I gamble you.
I tell you, they would’ve stayed if you looked like her.
I look in the mirror,
and I have drowned you in self tanner
to cover your perfectly porcelain skin.
I have burned your wild blonde curls into lifeless split ends.
I look into the mirror and I ask you,
am I finally enough?
As a lame apology to beg for the forgiveness
that I am not quite yet ready to receive.
Habits
When you left the first time,
you ran out of delicious lies to feed me,
because the more you scavenged for them,
the hungrier I got.
When you left the second time,
You came back with darker eyes.
I stopped pouring milk in my coffee,
I dyed my hair brown,
I only saw you at night,
nothing worked.
The third time,
my body went through withdrawls.
My inhales and exhales started to look the same,
as I spent the whole day vomiting up
the words I should’ve said.
The fourth,
My rib cage became a prison full of butterflies
with a life sentence
they had no intentions of living out.
The next,
I dyed my hair back blonde,
unlocked my rib cage,
and set the butterflies free.
This time you left,
I let you leave,
which is the only time I didn’t feel
alone.
Encounter
On the corner of Erie and Thomson Street,
a weathered man perches on the side of the icey guard rail.
With four days worth of frost on his flannel,
his layers cling to the curb,
until the light turns red, then his rickety knees urge forward.
He hobbles towards my defenseless car,
and his grey eyes seem to turn sapphire once ours meet.
My hand races to lock the door
and the defeating click contorts his face as if he had heard a gunshot.
His eyes speak to me,
they ask what part of him between cotton and bone seem dangerous.
Wrinkles hug the outside of his eyes,
but none touch the sides of his lips.
When he finally opens his mouth,
I didn’t expect his voice to sound just like mine.
His cigarette breath smells like a high schoolers bad decisions,
the only thing I wish I could’ve given him was his youth.
I almost didn’t recognise him with his ashy stubble
that hid his wind burned cheeks.
His elephant ears reminded me of someone from my old school,
whose round cheeks would boil from embarrassment
when we teased him about his stretch marks.
Now I fear that if I give him change his arms will break off all together.
“He’ll spend it on drugs,” my copilot grumbles.
But the growing pit in my gut knew
that even addicts got hungry.