Treatment songs: Meal Time

My teeth sink into my inner lip

as the plastic sockets in my knees squeeze tight

into a long treatise on rigidity. I weigh my options delicately and my stomach sings its sickeningly sweet refrain.

You do not deserve,

you do not deserve,

you do not deserve.

One bite and you are nothing.

(It is not nothingness I fear, but futility.

I do not know this yet.)

Marinara bleeds down the side of my flaccid pasta

as the other girls fold into themselves in front of hospital trays.

The air is laden with reality’s sudden burden.

Kathy picks up a cheddar-orange Sun Chip, hand-shaking, eyes watering.

I cut my strawberries into threes:

one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.

Numbers circumscribe cognition.

I pronounce my contention with the space I no longer occupy.

(It is not help I receive, but illness.

I do not know this yet.)

2013