Lilly

I wish I was thinner. I would be

so much cuter if I lost weight.

Don’t you think?

Asks Lilly at Ellen’s 21st birthday party

after taking a dab for the first time

She paints moonlight onto her skin

Powders her cheeks with stardust

Outlines her eyes with midnight

Every. Single. Morning.

I’ve known her for almost two years

and I’ve never seen her pores

She wants to be skinny kawaii girl

Arigatou gozaimasu, a bow and a curtsy

Doe-eyed pink hearts snapchat filter

Peace sign, puckered lips

Kiss the camera in the photo booth strip

Tourist in a sunhat, tourist in a sundress

She makes herself cute

Covers her mouth when she giggles

Shakes her head and looks down

when the stranger in Little Osaka

asks her to model for his instagram

I’m too shy, she apologizes

I’m not good at posing for pictures

I never like the way I look in them

I always blink when the light flashes and the shutter goes off

But I remember the smoke we blew that one night

and the way it blended into darkness

We passed the blunt and the plastic ashtray back and forth

along with the pieces of ourselves we hate the most

The curve of her stomach, the stretch marks on my thighs

The fat on her arms, the fullness of my cheeks

We were only ever allowed to love pieces of ourselves

Lilly just wants to be held

the way they make you hold

endangered tide pool creatures

at the aquarium

Like you know their precious limbs

could snap under pressure

I wish we could trade skeletons, I tell her

I wish my eyes were less moon shaped

I wish my bones where thicker

I am trying to make myself bigger

Scream into a vacuum of silence

Grow my hair long enough to strangle

Strong enough to suffocate

every man who looked at my midriff

as if it were something to be devoured

In a way

we are both endangered species

Defense mechanism chameleon skin

camouflaging ourselves into background

Pretend we belong in glass cages

Pretend we will break under pressure

This is how we blend into darkness

When the light flashes and the shutter goes off

They are only looking at a projection

They don’t see the mouth of our repressed anger

opening into a black hole

They don’t see the rope of my hair

waiting to drag them in by the throat