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