Cuticles.

The bulimia had started to stain on the synapses of my brain.
I stood in the middle of newly-stocked convienice stores, wide eyed, and trying to focus on the
palette of artificial candy colours that span around me.
I began to grasp the hands of paranoia.
If I wasn’t thinking about my own suicide, it was the anxiety of my body retiring early and losing hope on something that couldn’t be fixed.
My hands constantly moved to the left side of my chest, trying to find the steady beat of a heart.
Some days I was afraid to die, and others I firmly gripped a veiny hand around a bottle of Tylenol.
I was no longer connected to my body, I was now the little voice in the back of bulimia’s mind.
Sometimes stopping by, just to make sure I was still breathing.

She walked in tall and her smile revealed a mouthful of metal.
She was new, and I stood next to her nervously picking at the overgrown cuticles around my nail.
She told me small-talk stories about her highschool, and I stood with my arms crossed hiding my stomach.
"So what do you want to do when you get older?"
I thought about telling her that I wanted to be 90 pounds with only a carton of milk
and a jar of peanut butter residing in my fridge, how I wanted to see the bones
almost pierce the skin in my back, and live off black coffee and half a pack of cigarettes a day.
"Nothing. I want to do nothing."
I went back to picking the cuticle around my nail, breathing in the air from the awkward silence.
I thought about myself in five years.
Silent and boney, my goal weight reached.
Six feet under.