I kinda wanna be the girl you dont know anymore. I wanna be the one that escaped. The one you thought you could change her mind. I wanna be the girl you don't recognize anymore. I wanna be your sorry sad excuse. The daugher and the girlfriend that you look at with sorrow colored eyes. Because you never thought I'd turn out this way. Never thought you'd be the person to get close to such a person like me. I want my knees to touch. And I want it to hurt. I want to be boney and fragile and delicate. I want to be small and secretive. Quiet and deadly. I want to weigh less than water, I want to be able to fit two of me in my pants. I want to have the tiniest waist you've seen your whole life so all of you can fit around me. If I had the guts I'd throw up everything I've ever eaten. I'd take long showers that were lukewarm because my skin and bones couldn't handle the heat. I'd slice at my wrists and cry all day long. I'd write myself notes because my memory would fade. I'd wear sweats and hats because I'll never be entirely sure if my decision was the right one. And I'll never be sure if I wanted anyone to find out. I'd keep secrets and hold grudges. You'll ask me why and I'll tell you how it was my fate. How I chose heaven over you. You'll ask me if this is how I want to look as I'm sent to heaven. As I stand before God. And I'll pull you close and say, "Just tell me I'm beautiful. I want you to be my first." You thought it was wrong, so I whispered "I love you" and played the "you said you'd do anything for me" card. I wanted a normal-as-I-could-get life and sex was what seventeen year olds had. You thought we had all the time in the world for this. You wanted to wait until I got better. And I didn't have the heart to tell you that I was a sad, hopeless girl who wasn't ever gonna get any better. So the time was now and I wanted to know what it felt like to make love. What it felt like to breathe with a person balanced on my chest. And when you reached for me, I unfist my fingers but its just my wrist your after. You cover the plastic bracelet with your hand. You never wanted to make love to a patient. It was the night before Easter and I took a deep breath. I layed back and thought this is the night I let a boy unbutton my shirt and let him see the light dance off my pale, transparent skin." I bit my lip and prayed you thought I looked beautiful. I closed my eyes and my mind flashed back to before I got this way. When I still had dreams and goals and aspirations. When I was my daddy's little girl...his hell on wheels. Back to when my illness first started and each morning daddy would follow behind me in the car when I ran in case I fell and didn't get back up. This way when you were home alone and you were busy burying empty liquor bottles in your backyard, I was busy burying bags of vomit in the back of mine. You were on top of me and you thought you saw a flicker in my eyes so you asked what I was thinking. I couldn't breathe enough to explain so I faked a smile and lied when you asked me to promise it was nothing. You smile back and kiss me softly as if you knew what I was thinking. My memory goes back again. We wake in the room you slept in through your freshman year, the year before your brother left for the Army. Back when we went to school together and I wrote your name in my Geometry book. You stretch across the high school bed, to take your junior high yearbook from the high school bookcase to show me your 8th grade picture. I laugh at what people wrote about you as if I knew the language. My mind won't stay focused on the now, I'm so tired I can barely think. This time it takes me to my first doctors visit after my parents noticed my hip bones protruding. It went something like this: "When did you first notice your dramatic weight loss?" -Spring after I turned sixteen. After noticing my dramatic desire to lose weight. "Do you believe others consider you overweight?" -I belive others don't consider me very often. I can remember the window beside my bed, a hole broke through the mesh screen. I used to write "help me" and tape it to pennies and push the coins through the hole onto the street below. "I see. How did you hope to be helped?" -Someone to take my shoulders and shake. Tell me I have so much to live for. To pull my boyfriend aside and ask him who let him near me. To pull him out of harms way and give him a little talk about what this all means. "What was your desired attention?" -Rescue. Attention doesn't always get things done. Once again I was snapped back to the moment and you asked me what I was thinking. I imagined I was fine but told you that I wasn't used to being scared while in the same room as you. You touched my hair, called me baby and told me everything was gonna be okay. And thats all a girl could ever ask for. I told you I knew there was nothing to worry about. That it was nothing, as far as reasons go. I knew I needed a reliable alternative. An allibi because I wasn't guilty. I racked my deteriorating brain and I came up with nothing. I have my diagnosis. I have my diagnosis, I told myself. Shut up and enjoy the rest, because I have my diagnosis. I knew I had to tell you something because you were acting stranger and you didn't like hugging me anymore. Because I was so thin it was like you were hugging yourself. You thought I didn't know. You thought I couldn't tell how far your arms went around me. I was there too. I knew it all. I knew more than you did, because I knew why this was happening and I knew why it chose me. So I told you. And I asked if you were scared. You said, "Of what? I know you'll get better." Once again, this was one thing I wasnt so sure of. I knew when I first thrusted my fingers down my throat the time you took me to the movies, that I was tired and I wanted to close my eyes on the whole world. I wanted to sleep and never get up. I wanted to say goodbye because life wasn't a party for me anymore. But I saw the look in your eyes. You were scared. But you couldn't show it because that meant admitting there was something to lose. And I suddenly felt like my expectations had been grounded in reality. Nothing ever felt rapid. But it all was dramatic. It felt like forever and I just couldn't shake the weight fast enough. So I ran three more miles a day to make a solid ten, and I could feel the smile stretch across my face as I felt the pounds drip down my back in fat salty droplets. You came to see me in the hospital. Bed rest just never got any better. But everytime you came it never felt like exactly the right time. It never occured to me that my hair was always messy and I always looked like death. But I will forever belong to that boy with his cupcake rescue. But I told you to stop visiting because I knew if I saw you too much, you'd evaporate. I talked about you in therapy and as I said "so many times" - as in "he came to see me so many times" the nurse checked my chart and told me you had only been in to see me three times in my entire ancient stay. I told her, "You'll find it there if you search. The evidence doesn't hide. You'll find a list of my introvenous drugs and how many visitors I've ever had. I'm sure it'll take you a while because my file is thicker than any other girls." Except for one. Kennedy was her name. She was here for the same reason as me. But she was different. A lunatic some might say, but free spirit is what I would confide. If someone asked me, that is. She was a little crazy but that was her best quality. We snuck out to the roof and she offered to push me if I didnt have the guts to jump. We stood on top of fourteen floors of suffering. So her and I pled temporary insanity. We'll both claim we want to die. But we'll mean 'please someone convince us to stick around'. My mind goes back one last time. This was when plans were in our future. You told me you couldn't imagine marrying anyone who wasn't Jewish, and I told you just as earnestly, just as honestly and gently that I couldn't imagine getting through high school without killing myself. High school. The days of chewing gum, disposable razors, and when I threw away seven months worth of dried roses after we broke up the first time. You were finished and you rolled off the top of me. You snuggled in beside me catching your breath. And now I wanted to talk, I wanted to find out what it was like for you. What was it like to have a dying girlfriend? You told me about wrestling matches. About you throwing countless boys on the floor. How you went to the movies with your friends. How you were enjoying being seventeen. You told me about the boys you'd hurt if you could because they called you "fairy" and "fag" in the hallways betwen classes. I looked impressed because I wanted your hand up my shirt. Because that's when I felt the most comfortable. With my eyes squeezed shut and your hand resting on my barely-there ribcage. So I was home and I woke up early the next morning to read the daily paper with my father. I read the headline, then your address, then your name and I didn't understand who was screaming until my dad had to cover my mouth with his hand. They found you bleeding with the gun in your lap. I read and read and thought I could be inevitable too. You had no idea what it was like to have everything taken away from you and then suddenly be considered capable. But not so fast, Reverend Role Reversal. You always told me you were scared of suicide. That no matter how many times you'd tried that you never really meant to die. And all I could think about was how I wasn't there when you swallowed the poison and said I had to follow. I wasn't there when you slid open the cardboard box and placed a bullet in the chamber. You found the way to hold it just right and then fired. The thing I could never do. And you rendered my small gestures even smaller and somewhat pointless. I knew eventually you'd catch your death. And now your legs are two blue ribbons of bruises. But all that was standing in between you and your future was a black eye and a bloody nose. But I guess eventually you'll catch that too. Now all I wanted was someone to let me die. I kept searching for answers. Maybe it was the sudden desire for breath and light that disoriented you. So the next day I used the white crayon to letter "I love Danny K" on each delicate egg shell we dyed, so that every egg my family hunted for that morning stood for you. You swallowed the poison and I took the dagger and you said to me, "I'll meet you in heaven, baby."