thin and sin

Your daughter is looking through you with those heartbreaker eyes and you've never felt so low. Her fingers are jammed down her throat and oh God you can see scars running down her arms, naked butterflies, lines you don't remember being there before. She's poised above the toilet, head dangling above the pit where she's purged out her heart and you can't help it: you pull her back.

Why are you doing this to yourself, your mind screams to her. for God's sake, why?

She blinks softly, and you hear a flush and the tap go on. Her gaze never trails away, and you instinctively take a step forward until you realize you've been speaking out loud.

Why should I believe in what God wants me to do, she speaks slowly, steadily, when he doesn't bother believing in me?

You watch as her bird-arms snake protectively around her waist, the piano bones of her ribcage jutting through and all that's running through your head is where did I go wrong?

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The car ride is cold.

You can't remember the last time you listened to the radio because how the hell can people be singing when my baby girl is dying.. It's like you're living life on replay because you've been driving to the hospital for months and months and all she's getting is thinner and thinner.

We'll make this work, honey. you say, because if you don't speak your throat might just constrict and you don't want to cry in front of your daughter. We'll do this together, and you'll make it, see how beautiful you are and quit hurting---

A flimsy sundress is dusting right over the dips of her bones, and as her lips move you can't help but notice the gauntness of her cheeks.

Even if I 'quit', she grazes absently at the scars on her arms. there's not a chance in hell I'll ever be able to stop.

You stare at her, those words feeling like a knife to the heart. You have to stop, you choke out, matching fire for fire. you're not okay.

There's not even a glimmer of the girl you've loved and nurtured for all these years in those gray eyes as she speaks. (she's dead on her feet, dead on her fairy bone feet.)

Maybe I never was.

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You don't see her for years.

She runs away the minute she's old enough to live on her own. Most parents get the contentment of knowing their kids are studying at universities to finally catch their dreams and your child wants to starve herself dead. Your stomach squirms when you think of her because you know wherever she is there will be pills and razors and unanswered calls. And your heart breaks again and again because you're supposed to be the hero and help her get through thick and thin and now that's all that's left of her; thin.

You walk to the microwave to warm up your meal and you can't help but wonder about the last time she was here for dinner.

There's the image of her throwing the untouched plate away and suddenly the world topples over into an ocean of black.

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They say you went into cardiac arrest and you can't help but think it's about time my heart finally cracked.You hear bits and pieces of what they're telling you a neighbor heard you scream and called nine-one-one it's a miracle we found you in time…you have a visitor.

Your ears perk at the word 'visitor' because you've all but isolated yourself for five years, and while your brain sifts through possible names she slinks through the door with her light, dreamlike steps.

You can tell she's horrified of all the IVs and bags because god knows how many times she had seen and felt them. Her collar-bones are about to rip through her neck and her knees are about to buckle but she runs to your side anyway.

Daddy? she asks, so softly, so tenderly you imagine that your heart would've broken if it hadn't already happened. Are you okay? Please, please tell me you're okay…

You stay quiet because it hurts for your lips to move and suddenly she's crying and you're about to start, too. You have to get better. I promise if you do, I will…I-I'll eat the whole world out of it's food, stitch together my scars---just please…I'm so sorry… she stops to breathe, to sob. I-I'm so sorry.

You gaze at her, curved over your bedside her spine peeking through her coat and suddenly it all comes together. You see yourself, sobbing for your daughter to find a cure that was never there, her empty eyes and honest words --there's not a chance in hell I'll stop you remember her saying.

Her sickly frail form is starting to blur and you know (and don't know) what's coming next. You feel for the skeleton of her hand and grip it, and you can't help but be thankful you're so weak because you would've broken her.

Promise me. you say hoarsely. Promise me you'll…live a long happy life, find someone who will love you half as much as I do…don't waste away.

But fate is cruel, and the moment she'd felt the need to start living again you had to stop.