To a Certain Skeletal Sickness

 

 

Dear Ana, you know your devastation on me.

 

When you take a physical part away, you also steal my soul

 

Render me crippled, a disguised manifestation to other people

 

And blind me so that nothing else in the world I can see

 

 

 

I am just a little girl, 12, and I receive your retribution

 

Undeservedly, why did you have to make a reck

 

A young body, growing into itself, stopped to inspect

 

It will take years of tears to make restitution 

 

 

 

To my own abdomen I now strike and bruise 

 

Any strength was used to worsen my disease, I would choose

 

 

 

I feel it inescapable, yet it is my own choice

 

To control my weight is my single care

 

Since I could never make a difference, with no talents to share

 

Since I have no contributions or commandeering voice

 

 

 

But my fickle frail frame is just a deceptive ruse

 

My soul is not grey, but rather filled with many hues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now my Sophomore year I travel to Panama, every pointy bone

 

Seeking something, with an impetus to make someone’s day

 

Among a group of those deprived, led astray

 

Because of poor living, and no comfort at home

 

 

 

And I see there, there are no neatly paved avenues 

 

Not many scenes we are accustomed to

 

 

 

I administer precious medical aid for the body and eyes

 

Those who have never seen, receive invaluable spectacles

 

We share all we have— food, clothes, medicine— to give something respectable

 

Retaining walls for a building, with mortar I construct the sides

 

 

 

But not only the building is being repaired 

 

In Panama I build my mental stability, and remedy the impaired

 

 

 

I discover that there I loved the kids most of all

 

So happy to see us come and visit with them

 

10 days— I ignite a happiness in them, but the end would impend

 

Still, reflecting on the bus back, I felt I found my call

 

 

 

Maybe I am not worthless, in me something they rouse

 

When I saw that I did make a difference, a small due

 

 

 

And if there is anything I find in that experience to be true

 

Is that you must love life above all, and meaning of it will ensue

 

 

 

 

I return to America, and see to a bodily restoration

 

Because there is an occupation in the system of society

 

For me, and to be successful, of my life I need propriety 

 

Because my purpose is philanthropic; I will aid in healing nations.

 

 

 

 

I left as a bag of bones, with no will to live

 

But I wandered off the paved path, to find a shrouded trail

 

My emotions simultaneously were contained and derailed

 

My passion for humanity has become too restive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I still feel this unrelenting impetus to bring peace 

 

To any individual or society, and their well being I strive to increase 

 

 

 

Forever, until the day I die, I will try

 

To inspire equality and urge governments to pry

 

 

 

Into lives with the intent to continue what people like me want

 

Or to build a new establishment from the ground up

 

 

 

Until everyone feels the warmth of hope and success

 

And everyone works to put extreme depravity to rest

 

 

 

And you know what, I thank Ana for this. That

 

Certain skeletal sickness that made comfort scat

 

 

 

That pulled me into despair, and forced me to look for purpose 

 

For something I could give care, and shaped my aspiring career thus

 

 

 

Thank you for the isolation of my thoughts, to such a depravity

 

That the only natural hope I formed is that of the future of humanity

 

 

 

For discounting me as a human in a steady environment 

 

Making goals as a side effect—to save others till my body’s retirement 

 

 

 

Through philanthropic endeavours and studies 

 

To work for the greater good, and ensure fellow inhabitants are ruddy

 

 

 

Because in a funny way, the more I hated my individual 

 

And the more I tore myself down, the lost soul demeaned

 

I was able to rebuild a new person from it, a newfound self esteem

 

And find a new face in the mirror, built from anorexic residual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your former love,

R