FINAL DRAFT

Ode to Sick Maddy

By Maddy Gross

My God, look at you. As if you could get

any paler, you have. Remember when
you had to use translucent powder as
foundation, furiously building white over blue
in hopes that those crescents below your
tired and hollow eyes would vanish?

Remember when you hoped you would vanish?

And you almost did. You always dreamt of being
skinny, but not like this. Food clung to you
only by its greasy fingertips. 140, 130, 120.
You diminished in more ways than weight.

Crohns took care of what fat camp couldnt.

Boys started complimenting your dying body, and you
ate it up, knowing that nothing you ate stuck anyway,
and suddenly the deepening valley of your stomach
was the only place on Earth you could find beauty.

Every time you sat, you swore your thighs became puddles,
then oceans, which you were so terrified to drown in
you forgot to scream for help. You didnt want to.
If this was the price to pay for pretty, so be it.

Youll get healthier. Nutrients will regain their footing

in your body. You will feel full once again.

FINAL DRAFT

It was once all you wished for, to no longer suffer

at the hands of constant emptiness and hunger.
But you became tied up in the identity of emptiness,
the choruses of have you lost weight,
the acceptance you never got any other way.

You were like a flower plucked from the earth.

Beautiful. Dying. But no one ever talked about
the dying part. Yeah, Ive lost weight. Oh, just a diet.
Thank you.

Healths belly will be soft and round.

Painless, at long last. Pudgy. Peaceful.
Health may not look good on you, but it feels
better than you could imagine. It feels like youre living again.

Dont spend that time hating yourself.

I know its hard. I still struggle. I know.
The valley of your stomach is full.
Let it overflow.