Disorder

Skin pulled tight over gaunt faces, hollow eyes looking out at me, fearful of what they see, dreading pity, empathy, apathy, wanting form me only an ear, an ear i’ve given too many times from those too many times so tired is this ear that it closes up, away from the mention of skin pulled tight over gaunt faces, ribs seen from under sweatshirts, appetites dead and gone. Dead and gone i tell these hollow eyes yet they just blink as rivers of blood and acid flow with their tears Years and years of tears have fled down their cheeks leaving no trace but yellowing nails, crumbling throats, and skin pulled tight over gaunt faces. Losing them is hard to bear so i clutch at the claws left of their hands, feed them the weight of my words, anything to keep them on this side of the cliff. Jumping now, starving now, purging now seems to be their only option if their mother hadn’t said that, if their father hadn’t thrown that, if they hadn’t meant to say that, if they didn’t look like that. But they did. And they do. So they go through and through this pain until me and you see only skin pulled tight over gaunt faces and never a ghost of a smile on cracked lips, from which once spilled gems of words, emeralds and diamonds, ideas sparkling grandly – the words that fall now hit the bottom of their empty stomachs thudding hollowly, hitting hardly a nerve anymore as they numbly wipe the bile from their mouths, the bile i can taste sometimes as it rises in my throat, my own crumbling throat, crumbling of too many consoling words, too many patient denials, too many reassurances that they are normal, when normalcy is the only thing i cannot seem to achieve. As i wipe the bile from my mouth that tastes strangely of bloody and acidic tears my mind hears the weak cries of hollow eyes and i wonder how i can speak, how i can release my flood of words, how i dare to question them when my own arm is scarred and my finger isn’t all that clean, yet i open my mouth, hoping comfort not pain not bile, not smoke will fall and not hit hardly as i turn to skin pulled tight over gaunt faces, hollow eyes looking out at me, ribs seen from under sweatshirts, yellowing nails, crumbling throats, never a ghost of a smile on cracked lips, the claws left of hands, appetites dead and gone. Dead and gone. And i know i’m too late.