Aspartame

I arrived here at 20, rail thin in a polka-dot

dress,

tooth enamel dissolved by stomach acid

I was banking on my high school sweetheart

to be a source of love

An injection for a supply I'd been mercilessly

cut off from

It didn't work.

In the time we'd spent apart, he'd become a surfer

up in San Luis Obispo

and had developed a penchant for getting high

at 5 in the morning

I spent my time with him mainly:

a. not eating

b. checking the status of my hip bones

c. hiding from his alpha roommates

I'd wander around town cosplaying as a girl next door

hitting up TJ Maxx

like a normal American girl

in a normal American world

Far from a singing career, close to

failure

I was a

bulimic

college

dropout

with

no family.

Except there was a family.

My Mum, who I called in desperation

to book my plane ticket home.

Things went sour fast and my high school sweetheart

turned to aspartame dust

I took the train to Hollywood (like a cliché) and drove

the Amtrack like I was in the lap of luxuré

Relieved to have escaped the tension of a reunion gone

bad.

Hollywood Boulevard smelled like the apocalypse and

the pale winter light added to my feeling of

dissociation

of not being real anymore

of life being a numb game.

I could've died and not felt anything.

I spent my days visiting emo stores on

Melrose, dodging drug addicts on trains

and shopping at Forever 21

On my last night I caught my reflection, a silver light

bouncing off ribs protuding crudely from my back

It was then that I realized the jig was up.

My plan to be thin hadn't worked.

I didn't make him love me.

Years later, we meet again at the Roosevelt Hotel,

two old friends sharing the same soul connection

we'd had in high school. He told me when he'd seen

the 'Hollywood' video he'd felt sick.

Because I'd achieved my dreams.  Because I wasn't a lunatic.

And somehow it healed a forgotten part of me.

He was the only one I'd ever told about my dreams.

I was no longer a victim. I had been redeemed.

No longer a dropout. He had seen me succeed.

And finally, I wasn't who I was at seventeen anymore