Dear Mikayla

the last time I saw you you were seven and I was eight and you gave me a chart, all drawn up in blue crayon and told me it was to track what I put in my mouth every single day, every single meal because you wanted to be skinny, you said you wanted to look like a grown up and to this day, I still don't know why you thought, young as you were, that dysfunction is beautiful

when I got home my mother found it in my jacket pocket among the gum wrappers and the crumpled up poster of some teen heartthrob from your magazines she asked me where did I get this and who gave it to me and sweetie, didn't I know that I was perfect ?

the last time I saw you, you were fourteen and I was fifteen you went up to the front podium in English class and you read a story about the pain you had somewhere deep inside your heart, that we would never see about all of the oceans you had cried and all of the storms inside your soul and I don't think you understood the irony of it all, that you were baring yourself more than I ever could

your pain is palatable, I suppose your pain is liquid sugar, running through the multicolored streaks in your hair, onto everyone you love you are artfully feminine in your obsessions elegantly glamorous in your anxiety beautifully disheveled in your depression you are so unique, so creative, bearing the weight of life bandages over nonexistent wounds your life is black and white, a splash of crimson here and there a perfect canvas of destruction