My Eating Disorder Saves Me in the Apocalypse by Elisa Rowe
c/w: eating disorder

My street is as haunting
as a seaport. Vast, blanched, shivering.
This city can indulge and leave nothing.
Listen, my body
is a survival kit.
These thighs radiate like planets,
cloth and sweat clinging in orbit.
This brain so versed in rationing
hates everything I consume,
a black bean in the cupboard,
a cucumber chilled on a windowsill.
My ghosts are vague. I forget
their names. They come at mealtimes,
portioning grains of rice, dropping
whispers like rain.
I am learning what I cannot need.
Elisa Rowe (Crawley) (she/her) is a neurodivergent immigrant, writer, educator, and poet. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Michigan Quarterly Review, SAND Journal, the International Women's Writing Guild's anthology Heels into the Soil: Stories and Poems Resisting the Silence and elsewhere. You can find her posting cat pictures on Twitter @elisacwrites or check out her website at elisarowe.com