same height, i am 12 times her clothing size
and my friends call me skinny.
her full-length mirror is too heavy to pack,
plus shelly shouldn’t really
have it anyway.
funhouses stretch sideways,
so she gives it to me.
like she gave me the egg yolks,
then later the whole hardboiled egg,
and drank the hot water
with salt.
then later without.
i break the mirror’s bottom corners
and smash it in front of the dumpster.
12 days bad luck? or is it years?
shelly asks me to throw away her scale,
to find her laxatives in drawer corners
and throw those away, too.
she asks me to take a picture of her,
just like i used to, under lingerie for craigslist boys,
but now under blankets
because her bones are cold,
under a stuffed dog,
under a braless sweater, c-cup breasts flattened,
hipbones teeth-picking.
her mom looks sad as shelly packs
(not the heavy stuff).
her mom watches me cook with butter.
eat a burger
and garlic mashed potatoes.
eat a waffle.
eat some gum.
shelly and i never hug, but we hug.
closer than when i slept in her bed —
it’s the closest our ribs
have ever gotten.
Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com). For more information or her previous publications, please visit her personal website (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
