the perfect woman

no one
           loves a woman like you.
pale. virginal. frail.
shaking as you apply lipstick that seems your lips
invisible.  The perfume bottles have crystal toppers that whisper
your dappled reflection across the mirror, string the
salty taste of your wrists over echoes.
The white lace of your neckline froths up, white and pure,
yet the dark undertow is surely there, and you can
see it is
            bottomless.
You can't hear me come into your room, but
no one
           can smell blood under the skin, either.
you'd be a pretty woman if you weren't so afraid of it.
So afraid of your own pale smile, so afraid of the thin
curves that, at the age of nineteen, could barely break you
out of childhood.

My lighter clicks, holds a flame, then goes out,
stealing a moment of your careful breathing.
Even the silence has reflection.
I almost hear you whisper my name.   Smoke from
my cigarette flutters down upon an array of silk, and I imagine
ash falling from my silhouette and ruining your pretty white dress.
Your pretty white face.

"You've lost weight," I say, no inflection; my hand falls
out of shadow to you, laying carelessly your dress aside,
wrinkling and pushing and pulling it until my fingers each
name their own single delicate rib, conjured through goosebumps.

I pull all ninety-eight pounds of you to my mouth.

Your kiss tastes as pale as it looks.
My hand is choked by the white of your dress, and my
fingers reach for nothing. my nails scratch for bone,
an easy reach.  your pale mouth whimpers with
a touch of honeyed colour; eyes closed away
with waxy folds.
I push my cigarette between your soft
lips and pull the pins and barettes from your long
hair, bending them between my teeth, letting them
skim my tongue. They taste like
your thin, clean hair.  I take off your shoes and kiss you again.

The cigarette loses balance and falls, and you are quick
to stamp it out, but
not so quick that your little cold feet
aren't singed.
You lament the blackened hole in the heel of your
new white tights and sag in your chair.

I remove the tights, beginning with my knuckles
pressed painfully hard into your protruding hip bones, then working
down, releasing your kneecaps to the air; ankles, feet and toes are laid down gently.

The tiny room grows colder as your heart
hammers, white noise of a white organ.
The dress is conquered and lies dead on the floor,
white and small like a frigid corpse.

my mouth pulls color to the endless winter of your skin,
Roaming your arms, chest, stomach.
infatuated with the slender prongs arching
up from you, thin little bones.
Your smile isn't too pale anymore, and you
keep whispering--something I've chosen
to ignore.  a mascara-clotted eyelash
finds a way into the white of your eye,
and your eyes fill with tears as your smile seeps into the startling echo.

my fingers carve valleys of hot lines all the
way to your waist.
                             You tearfully blink away the eyelash.

I pause, waiting for your mistake.

                                                     I'm beautiful, you say, sudden.

                                                     I've done it.  I'm perfect now.


My silence sharpens the reflection of
my eyes, of your bones.
In the mirror, a cold dark hand
grips your thigh, clenching hard on the bare skin, and your blindness edges away.

"fat", I say, squeezing.
the eyelash is gone, but the tears continue.

"fat," i hiss, and you
whisper it too.  choke it out.
sobbing, now. screaming
as the echoes rupture.

you will never be perfect I whisper, teeth clasping your reddening ear.

I leave and slam the door hard
behind me, leaving no sound but my eternal breath on your thighs.
you grip the cold lighter in
your white hand
as you cry, and
shaking, let it click
                            you burn the little white corpse
                            on the ground,
                          then contemlate doing the same
                             to yourself.
but you could never die
                                     ugly.

no one
           loves a woman like you.
because my name is anorexia, and I'll love you forever.