Admission Paperwork

TW: eating disorders/bulimia

the most disgusting thing i can think of
is when i ate three quarters of a tray 
of brownies in twenty minutes &
put the rest in the trash &
poured dish detergent over them, as if to say enough 
& then sat down,
because i knew it wasn’t.

& then after a little while i got
back up & went to the trash & pulled out the brownies & ate the rest of the tray 
that tasted like lye–like how i imagine acid corroding metal 
feels for the metal.

& to be honest, i’ve always felt that way, 
barely managing not to ooze my life out of these
tiny, ragged holes,

but never as much as i did shivering on the tile, 
watching half-digested brownie & soap flush away,
watching myself stay.

it seems obvious, but 
it’s only lately that i’ve realized
there must be a different way 
of watching time 

than through the eyes of this 
body bound 
to persistence & disaster,

where morning after morning
I wake to find soft wreckage. 
And I, the only survivor.

H. Lee Coakley (they/she) is a queer poet & nutritional healer currently based in Brooklyn, NY. They hold a BA from New York University and an MSPH from Johns Hopkins University. Their work has been featured in The Lavender Review, Utterance Journal, Red Eft Review, The Voices Project, Blueshift Anthology and The Mad Farmer Reading Series. Follow them on Instagram: @pandowellness

Image by Vamika Sinha