Eating Disorder

One day you eat lemons, because the internet says
lemons help detox. And your thighs could use all the 
detoxing they can get.

The next day you eat cake because you think skinny
could never taste as wonderful as this slice of
ultra moist chocolate layered heaven.

You obsessively weigh yourself, counting down to the
ounce just how much your belly fat jiggles over your
jeans and how much that piece of cake cost you.

You eat nothing. You don't deserve it, you miserable
waste of human flesh and space. Even the air you breathe
is too calorie dense for you and you practice holding
your breath to make yourself look smaller.

Cake, lemons (no fear of scurvy here), air, measuring
tapes, work out videos, sweat and tears of frustration.
You just want to grab a little slice of happiness,
swallow the sun in bite sized pieces until you glow from
the inside out.

You drink nothing but water, you eat nothing but lemons,
wracking your body down by a pound. Need to run faster,
eat better, swallow the diet pills, measure your food
in eighths of a cup for one meal.

Then one day, the person you so obsessively abused,
forgets how to be and simply vanishes into your punished
body. There is nothing left of you, except you. And
you don't even love you.

Heart break

My heart beats slightly off-kilter now. It doesn't run anymore,
It jogs.
It jumps, pauses, sprints and then walks.

Up and down my staircase ribs, it stumbles, it slips.
It skips, it rattles, it creaks.

Remember when it did that the first time?
You and I had stayed up all night, talking, discovering.
You made me feel like the moon would never give way to the sun.
I thought you were a prince in disguise, fairy tale perfect.

I didn't know that a loving heart could trip into breaking.
I never expected it to feel like falling in love when we were falling out.

But looking at you,
thinking the things I do,
my heart pauses it's marathon, memorizing your face.

Tomorrow I'll wake up somewhere else, will you even miss me?

A Sexual Encounter from the Point of View of a Loveseat

-Twelve hundred dollars and a Pearl Necklace-
He kisses her into my arms; admires my gilt, cream and gold threaded, upholstery. He loves the contrast of her skin against mine. He says so as he slides his hand up her thigh and under her satin slip of a dress. He finds something just as satin and she lets out a gasp of pleasure.

-Venetian and Satin-
Her dress whispers to the floor, intimate as old lovers, and her hips kiss the cushions. Between deep kisses, he notes the plushness. He sighs, blissful, pushing into her and her into me. Her breath comes in short gasps, each one a love letter into my silks. She holds me, shaking.

-Love and Seating-
He cups the curve of her skull, bringing her face closer to his, sharing breaths. Her skin is a blushing umber rose, petals unfolded against cream and gold. She is ripe with need, skin caressing skin until they both begin to burn. When they release, they both cry out in animalistic joy, equally ravaged by waves after waves.

-In years to come, I am a lusty reminder-

June Bugs

Drinking mint juleps with a striped straw,
empty June lungs soon fill with June bugs
and sparkling July promises.
Bitter. The air is bitter with June skies
and July lightning. We called them fireflies,
like tiny beacons to follow home.
By September all our leaves had begun to
brown and the last of the June bugs had
flown South.
These empty June lungs breathe summer and
taste autumn. The sun sets slower, lingering to
glimpse the moon.
The fireflies fade out, one by one, candles
blown out by turning breezes. We're lost in
the dark and tied to each other by red threads.
In December the stars glitter like cracked glass
and dusty diamonds. Our June lungs have frozen
solid, all the air withered and lost in the snow drifts.
Those summer children have long returned to the
ground and all that is left are naked branches.
We remember lemons and the moon longs for the sun.

Disappearing Act

I woke up this morning missing my feet.
Below my ankles was nothing but air,
those two lefties I always claimed to dance with,
the ones too large and flattened,
those feet that I took for granted,
vanished.

By lunch I had lost my hands.
At the wrists I flexed,
stretching invisible fingers toward glasses of milk,
grasping, but not lifting,
dragging knuckles against ivory keys,
simply gone.

At dinner I noticed the hole in my chest.
Oddly misshaped, somehow full of its invisibility,
I touched it with my missing fingers and wondered;
wondered if I was just imagining those tactile senses,
will the rest of me follow suite?
Disappear?

By bedtime I was nothing more than a head.
Resting on a white pillow, dreaming of bodies fled;
wondering where all our pieces go when we fall apart,
aching from lost soles to lost digits,
my head rolled from side to side,
weeping.

In the morning I was gone.