Old Friend,
Do you remember when we were children?
Hidden behind bus seats and cheap smiles
Yours the brightest of all
You were the shepherd of our grade,
Everyone flocked to you
Like vultures to a corpse,
Circling
I, so close to you
Close enough to feel your breath
Could not hear your battle
Unless cool winds blew in open door
Whistling
Echos of the happenings
It sounded like a scuffle at most
I closed my ears to it
Even when at age 12
We lied in bed late at night
At a girl’s house who we didn’t even like
Just us two, awake, back to back
Until I rolled to you and saw the tears
You said,
“I’m so fat”
But I never saw fat
You were delirious
I used to write love poems
About you
A secret shame
And you found out about them
Read them
And still didn’t see the beauty
Everyone else did
You drank my words like soured milk
And offered them back with
Yeah, but a boy will never love me
My disease was easy to see
You would find me at the bottom
Of empty bottles
Shooting to the moon
And carry me home night after night
My disease was screaming
Yours was a whisper lost in the wind
You shined so bright
You erased any trace of shadow
And now you are skinny
But not enough
You are skin over bones
Yellowed from starvation
It’s not beautiful,
Even if you still are
Counting calories and weeping over weight
Hospitals and fluorescent lights
You were better
And then your old friend came back
It’s not your friend
He deceives you
How can I bear to see you decay?
Hollowed cheeks and collarbone
I want a thigh gap
But I don’t want to bury you
You wanted a man to want to bed you
But only maggots come to dinner tonight
Can you not see what you’re doing?
Dying is a funny thing
Until it’s not
Old Friend,
Do you remember when we were children?
Who never got to see a childhood
Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten
When we were fifteen and in the mall
And you saw a golden gown
Sweeping the floor like willow trees
And you said
When I’m skinny enough to wear that,
Bury me in it
Laughed, even
Now you’re skinny enough
Green-eyed girl in golden gown
Skinny like a skyscraper
I won’t bury you yet
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