I am guilty of the sin of vanity.

If I pass a window, I stop and fix my hair.

I focus on my reflection in my laptop screen even now.

I can see my round tired eyes.

I can see my eyebrows that recovered from my excess plucking in middle school.

I can see my bouncy casual curls, pushed back by my $5 sunglasses from Walgreens.

My breasts look good today in this shirt.

Especially if I stretch my arms above my head.

This shirt used to be my mother’s.

But vanity is not admiration.

Vanity is obsession.

I am sick of myself.

Body horror, if you will.

I counted three new stretch marks on the top of my bulging stomach yesterday.

Is two pounds a lot?

To gain, yes.

To lose, no.

I catch glimpses of myself in my mirrored closet door.

I’m always hunched.

It’s gotten to the point where if I sit up straight for too long, my muscles ache and tremble.

If I plant my feet on the ground and sit in a chair, my legs will shake uncontrollably.

If I lay on the floor, my neck is crooked and my back is arched.

I can’t straighten my knees.

I have a box in my closet of all my favorite clothes.

None of them fit me anymore.

A pair of jeans I once bought because they gapped around my waist and flowed around my thighs.

They don’t button anymore.

my mother is dead, and yet she still breathes

her soft hands were always cold to the touch, but now they lie still

those cold hands used to stroke through my hair and rub my back and my skin would prickle and pull away, i do not know why

a hand on my right shoulder caused me to shift to the left

"please don't touch me"

the leftovers in the fridge go bad, because she was the only one who ate them and she no longer eats

my mother is dead and now i am the mother

she's been dead for a while, all my memories of her are tinted with moments of her death

my mother once told me that when she found out i was a girl, she was not disappointed but incredibly sad

her mother was dead and she knew she would die too, and i would die and my daughter would die

bad genes

my mother's hair thinned as she stroked her hands through mine

i am mother and i am dead

i lie next to my dead mother and die too

before i become someone else's dead mother

i killed her the moment i was born

i want to break the cycle but i have already died

i am a mother with a mother and no child

hidden in my smile and my laugh there is sadness

but only around you

i’m [never] happy [except when i’m] around you

that’s the sad part

at night

in bed

i close my eyes

pillows crumpled next to me in a crude form of

a [your] body

a playlist titled ______′s Recs with six songs

if streamed songs wore like vinyl those songs would be (smooth)

grooves worn (smooth)

a :) next to your contact name

only your contact name

only obtained for a group project

only:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, this is Isla

hey

What were those songs you told me to listen to?

I remember Down by the River, but what were the others?

Sunshine of your love by cream and in-a-gadda-da-vida by iron butterfly

Okay! I’ll listen to them tonight :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on your birthday, I gave you a bad motherfucker wallet from pulp fiction

we watched it together

you flicked my forehead whenever I nodded off

i wrapped it in golden paper, in a black box

delivered [two days late] with a cheesy

“Vincent, we happy?”

beaming, you responded:

“yeah, we happy!”

“this is the best gift i got for my birthday, and I got a bottle of vodka”

we haven’t talked since then.

8 days ago seems like forever

we don’t have any classes together

i miss you.

you aren’t mine to miss.