self portrait as the scissors i use to cut my best friend’s hair by Mikhaela Woodward

CW: Alludes to eating disorder

i cut beef ramen flavor packets while she starts screaming about her hair / i don’t know shit about what shit comes after this shit / i’m just the catalyst / i’m just saying do it / i’m just pounding my fist / i’m just eating a bagel while the moths nibble my eyelids like they know / we walk through an entire swamp to get here and i’m eating another bagel / she goes to the counter / she orders

nothing / she says i’d like to change please / she’s eating spoonfuls of peanut butter / i’m dyeing the ends of my hair black / she’s holding a mirror to her face and i’m staying up all night

stuffing crumbs i find in my bedsheets / into my mouth / i’m jerking

off when she leaves the room / it’s very obvious we are enemies yet very cute that we are friends / a boy comes

down in the driver’s seat / he’s crying over a death / i’m leaning over to kiss him / i think i am gay i just wanted to heal something / for once she picks me up / her voice blended like the milkshake she gives me to finish / i am ravenous / i am screaming about my

hunger / she’s eating but i’m never there to see it / i’m cutting something open / gives way like a bruise / or a fray / or a crab shell / i think it is her grabbing me / her hands emerge like snakes from the bottom of a well / the bathroom is molded and too dark to see clearly but it’s all the same to us / i cut her hair / it falls in chunks / all this weight coming off in dead

keratin / i say i think we are done here / she’s eating spoonfuls of it / i peel back the floor boards

to find a mess / of evidence she’s devouring fistfuls / it’s all disappearing and i’m cutting the tags off all our new clothes

hoping some of them will fit