i miss my collarbones

to be content with less

I used to be this girl with two pierced nipples, sharp collarbones, and a Latin tattoo. I starved myself long and hard enough for those collarbones to finally poke through. It was a different kind of beautiful, one only found in needing less brought on the pangs in my belly (“try and pinch an inch”, I dared you) and the empty comfort of a rib cage. I was an outline of an angel full on nothing but denial and pride finally earning her first fragile set of wings.

Just a small sliver of a thing, stumbling into that east village tattoo shop. You know the one with the weathered awning? Where Johnny with the chipped tooth (“you should see the other guy”, he grinned) offered me a shot before the needle in his hand and Stevie on the radio sang a song about a white winged dove and wasn’t it funny we were both on the edge of seventeen?

Of course I took that as another sign. Of course.

So I went and got that “resurgam” on my pale wrist. A reminder of my resurrection, right? But the thing with levitating is you’ve got to remain untethered enough to pull it off. It’s the only way to master zen and the art of light as feather stiff as a board. And I’ve read that Milan Kundera book half a dozen times and I’m still not convinced the lightness of being is all that unbearable. And sure, sure, yes it’s true what they say about hunger, it hurts. But when it comes to lifting your heels off the ground, it works.

Anyway that’s in the past. I’ve gone and made myself too heavy now. I took on the weight of being a sober citizen of society, of being a responsible member of a family, of being a girl present enough to be worthy of a man’s love. Don’t get me wrong, it is an honor and a privilege to be all of that for you.

But I have grown full of expectations on your behalf and look at how slow it’s made me. Look how you’ve clipped my wings.

I can’t even see my collarbones.

I’m just too grounded in your shit and my shit to be ethereal. Like the gods once were. You sold me a dream of getting stronger and I did, of course. All it’s been good for is carrying the weight of your burdens on my now capable and calloused hands in one trip. Not two.

If they’d told me back then that breaking bread for all my alleged sins would soften my sharp, holy edges.

Just maybe I wouldn’t have.