bringmyselftobed

[bringmyselftobed]

girlhood

WHENEVER, i think of girlhood,

I can never relate back to baby pink,

Dandelion seeds,

Or chocolate covered popcorn.

My girlhood was short lived

My girlhood got lost at the bottom of a locker,

With notes i wrote to my

/FUTURE SELF/

My girlhood was

One apple a day

Tasted of malnutrition

Felt like cold toes and

hot stomach acid,

He held my girlhood in his mouth

With a sharp tongue and rubber teeth

He said, i look so good now that i’m getting thinner,

Said he couldn’t be a virgin his senior year,

Said he’d pick up condoms anyway,

I can still remember the sound in his voice and his shaking body

I can remember his mom, drunk, telling me how happy she was to see her son

With such a good girl like me

I can remember his friends,

minding their business

I can remember the lies he told me,

But never my thoughts.

And i question if i even existed that year,

Or if my girlhood had been passed around

Through the mouths of boys who never knew me

My girlhood feels fucked from my body

Soaked in dirty lake water and rinsed off

Rung out

Into this poem.

[bringmyselftobed]

I always knew you were gonna leave me

What a painful pointless experience i had

Wishing and waiting for a man in slumber to bring me the sun

And the moon

He let me beg and plead my case when there was nothing to turn back time

And no hands to bring the sun

It was the last that ring that would ever cut my finger and on the way out i still hoped a prayed he’d changed his mind

I never imagined him to hate me enough to embarass me that much

Time and time again I picked wrong

I let anything happen to me

Anyone love me

At least we tried

At least i pleaded and begged on my knees asking why

At least you admitted cowardice

At least i grew smaller and at least i wrote it all down

At least you let me get nowhere

At least you fucked her

at least i let you keep the cat

At least you didnt look me in the eyes

At least i left

At least you lied

So many times

At least i left

At least you lied

           Your life was only my world because its what youve asked of me

Im looking at the moon taking turns wishing on it to die and wishing to have something else to live for

I go out walking and buy a pack of cigarettes  

At least i tried

At least i got nowhere

At least you love her

At least you kept the cat

At least i saw it all first, months prior

At least I tried

At least i left

[bringmyselftobed]

lease renewed in august

Three years ago from yesterday i was celebrating my engagement. We were at stormking in new windsor upstate new york. two of three figures in a grass field. I shared the moment with a richard serra sculpture we had just been admiring, well he admired and i admired him admiring. Those little corrections seem to matter so much now. We went to a little tapas bistro in lower manhattan that night to celebrate, one he mentioned he had been to before with his ex so he knew it would be good. I kept the receipt and still have it buried in a box of artifacts on my dresser i wouldn't dare to open. I remember the drunken uber home pleading with god to let me get all the food i had just engorged on back up by any means necessary. I dont remember if we had sex or not, i remeber not being able to get all the fried octopus out of my stomach. It was the first vacation i had been on in 4 years.

In about three weeks give or take i will be considered a year practically recovered from bulimia.

In about three weeks give or take, one year ago, i was moving out of my house. My mom came over and let me lay my head in her lap, she told me i had to be the one to leave. In common daughter and mother practice i defied her for arguments sake. My only argument being denial. I wanted to hold onto the house forced upon me, committing to my life being one big larp of house wife and arguments and getting too drunk to even remember making up. Where i thought i could be comfortable. I really did love him though. Like a stray beaten dog loves its foster family. I thought he could save me and i thought he was the only one who could save me. How would you feel forcing that stray dog back onto the streets? Thats what i thought he was doing to me. My friends had a spare room and i promised them it would be max 6 months until i figured all this shit out. In about three weeks give or take i will have been here a year. They helped me pack my shit, drove cars back and forth with boxes, loudly declared “no we got it” every time he offered his help all while I couldnt even mutter a word let alone bark. I let him keep our cat we adopted together fearing hed grow to resent me if i held my ground. My mom was the only one who told me to let him keep the cat, and for some reason i didnt argue with her on that.

Bulimia was a center point of my life and identity long before we got together. it was my main focus for our entire relationship too. And i could say something hardly profound about how the day he broke our engagement off was the day i finally stopped binging and purging. Although I think not saying it keeps it still profound and weighted in my head. But in hopes of humoring the reader, i think the true weight, the lies he told me, the situations i couldnt make up if i tried, finally didnt matter. I didnt have to worry if he was going to cheat on me with my friend anymore. I was released from this karmic cycle of insecurity and bottom line that drove me to insanity. All the fights about it didnt even fucking matter anymore! And i was thankful! In a weeks time of being out of the house i had a calgary of beautiful friends i would have never known were there, a widened circle of people who wanted to hear me talk, laugh at my jokes, i was telling jokes again! They heard me laugh as they heard me cry and you cant always get friends like that, you cant always be as lucky as i was. As i am.

This year, right here right now, im on day three or four of my first quarantine with covid. See i told ya im lucky. And im writing something i want to be proud of for the first time in 3 years. And im remembering how easy it can be, and that it doesnt have to be painful it just has to be honest. I hope i let people read this one. My roommate just brought me some dinner she made, knock knock its outside dont forget to put your muzzle on to grab it! Ive never felt love like this.

And if i were to think of a year from now, id like to hope id let myself fall in love again. And i know that it wont feel like saving and it wont feel like pressure or shame. And after a year im flooded with what feels like a lifetime without him. A lifetime of two very bad hookups, parties where everyone complimented my cooking, doing yoga in the living room with anna, coffee dates with morgan, crying at my serving job, getting drunk with nick and sidney, smoking weed and completely wigging out, learning how to make a career from logan, and feeling her tough love, dancing and stealing flowers from neighbors with cayla, laughing until i pee with shelly, understatement of the year, ordering clothes on the real real, crying in the car with my mom, making out with lippy, then telling lippy i didnt want to make out when the coke wore off, deciding i didnt wanna do coke anymore, making out with whatever random lunged at me in a club, deleting hinge and redownloading and deleting again for good i think (a couple weeks ago), ordering clothes on depop, a couple insatiable internet crushes, falling asleep on the couch, rewatching game of thrones twice in 3 weeks, sleepovers and new tattoos in my kitchen with jacob, reminiscing with ana about music wishing i saw her more often, watching romcoms with tori in her attic apartment, and laughing with austyn, in the middle of a crowded italian restaurant which is clearly understaffed all because i made him do lady and the tramp noodle. getting free dessert and never even considering how id get it back up. Thats what a year feels like, a lifetime.