your arms hang from your torso like
pale wires
with no one to croon their neck
and check
on you. in your room. with the pathetic purple bedside lava lamp that you turn on every thursday. religiously.

you take a deep breath from your mouth,
not your nose,
the lines on your arms are prose, not poetry.
the stains on your teeth are fatal to strangers, never created
willingly. oh my god. my stomach hurts.

i don’t want this to be about me
don’t make this out to be more than it
ought to be.
don’t mention my nervous tension and
don’t mention the slot
between my thighs that my phone can fit into and support its side on the car seat.

when i had a middle part, nobody loved me;
this is still true. the middle part
is the split walnut of my very core
and the split
where there should be a meeting
in my 97 pound legs. i like to say i’m 95.
17.7 < 8.5 = no good, girl child. no good.
lesser space = lesser words = less and less
i heard poetry about less and now i’m
thinking more
about not thinking at all, and how easy
that would be
for me, the spineless and whimpering
statistic. i am everywhere and i want
to be in one place.
i am everywhere. bring me down.