CW: Eating Disorders, Mental Illness, Suicidal Ideation

Tugging on the rocked imposter’s boat and asking for that 

lil bit of extra room inside, it’s the stuff of exhaustion 

dreams and collapses. Your people will playact and they’ll 

oblige and they’ll x-ray and dissever me as soon as I turn. 

Even the cat will sense the weirdness vibes and maroon me 

with his coolness. I am not a crown glass frame. I can’t 

afford any more singes at the back of my head where my eyes 

are. They’ll dance around the no-no zone all evening, asking 

with the absence of the actual ask-ing: why my forkbites 

look the way they do why I grip the knife too hard why I 

swirl the deadweight food around. And you, by benevolent 

deflection, will only center said no-no even more. Yes, 

you mean well. Most days I think I do, too. But your kindness 

is trouble wrapped in trouble. And though you’d never voice 

it: at this point, your weariness, matching only mine, will 

be apparent in the hemic tint of your fingertips tapping 

fingertips. Next we’ll move on to films and this’ll really be 

it. I’ll say you guys choose. You’ll insist, say I’m the special 

occasion, singling out with that word - occasion - my foreign-ness.

And you and yours will morphose into a flock of restless parrots: 

I thought you liked this one, I thought you liked this one.

But every choice will be thin ice: cinephile, yes, but faced 

with minefield options. This one on fashion might mention 

bodies, mention weight. This tragicomedy will make of trauma 

a diluted joke. This documentary will confront your people 

with their white privilege (and though I do this dance on the 

regular, with you watching, fussing, fretful, it’ll hit 

very different). So I’ll settle on something stupid we’ll all 

hate, but that won’t hate us back in kind. And every time I’ll 

go outside to thread up some composure, you’ll feel you have 

to, casual, follow. We’ll ogle the distance between your 

balcony and the concrete underneath. We’ll ha-ha and temper 

the nasty inside joke

No funny business!

Wasn’t thinking about it!

And calling it a night, though early, will feel both a 

deliverance, and 

a defeat.

You love me, but I ruin things. Let’s not like each other less.