starves at breakfast

starves at lunch

she starves her way through school

starving there

sitting there

imagining the dinner

she’ll pause

and starve until she sleeps

laying there

starving there

dreaming there

shrinking there

starving has caused shrinking

once proud to be taller than her mother

now strives to be small and thin

thin enough to fit through her bars

waves her hand

they dissolve into air

freedom

looks out

of the window

one toe out of line

reaching for the crumbs of cookie

barred again

stuck again

starved again

have to be skinny

have to be perfect

have to be pretty

pretty isn’t fat

you can’t see her fatless yet

fat is all she sees

staring at her naked body

staring at her soul

her soul is whittled to a point

her body’s at a breaking point

her knees her arms her face her chest

reduce

lost the power to reproduce

seeing what could be

blind as a horse with it’s eyes set forward

can’t look back

can only keep staring

staring at the control she has

staring at the fat she has

staring at the bars so thin

almost fits through

her fingers are almost as sharp as the pin

she manages to snap

to make her clothes smaller

double 00 and still they don’t fit

no more breakfast

no more lunch

barely swallows her milk

disgust

barely chews the gum in her mouth

barely has something to digest

but has to eat

her body still protests

disgust

so much hidden

so much repressed

her arm fits through her cell bar

feels herself eroding

almost nothing at all

broken plates

broken chairs

only thing she can’t break is her mirror

staring

staring

at her fat

staring in disgust

so little she has

so much to lose

sleep comes hard

and ends too early

silence comes

and stays forever

early

late

what difference does it make?

can’t speak

can’t shout or speak

all she can express is the depress she is

staring staring

in disgust

cuts herself on the plates

rips her shirt away

sees the blood drip down the wall

sees what she has to lose

bars don’t loosen

only shrink

makes her feel obese

and dim

wants to stop

but can’t pause

has to be thin

has to be i
n