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Jen’s Elegy (My Best Friend)

I overheard your silent cries
When you gagged in the bathroom.
I felt the clench in your stomach
As your dinner left your throat.
You cried where no one could see you
Because you hated yourself
And you hated that no one noticed
That you were good enough,
Even when you were getting all As
And blisters formed on your feet
When you ran in the gym: two hours of anguish.

A small china doll broke off my shelf
And I spent hours putting it back together,
But the pieces never fit back together right
Fractured glass, I’m reminded of your eyes.

We’ve always told you that you had eyes like
The stained glass windows in the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Hypnotyzing, you made so many men fall in love
With what they would never have

You were afraid to love
Because you never really loved yourself
The cuts you constantly mark yourself with
Bleed in rivulets down your legs
And stain your tights
Red to remember.

I cannot walk past your house
Without thinking about when we sat in your bathroom
And kept fixing our makeup until our wrists were sore
And we would sneak alcohol into flasks
Because that was the thing to do.

We always cared way too much
But never about what really mattered.
The truth was, we swept the problems under the rug
And let that be our solace.
If we didn’t think
It didn’t exist.
If we were ugly
We sure hid that
If we felt sick
No one would know
If we were dying
No one would care
And if you wanted to be loved
No one would stand by you…

You were gone too soon
Because I was the finger in your throat
And the vomit on your sink
And the blood on your wrists…
Because I let you go.