compulsion

oh,

to be an eighteen-year-old girl collapsed on the tile of the communal showers at precisely three-forty-eight am,

i say,

as if she is not me.

as if i do not see myself in the speckles of yellow vomit adorning her lips,

or the tiny

ever-so-faint

half-moon indents in the soft, innocent flesh of her knuckles.

i do not look at her and see my own

swollen features, jutting ribs. shallow breaths,

pulse too fast and then!

she coughs, a violent sound, and lifts her head to look at me, bleary.

oh, she says. hi.

hi, i echo, and then:

are you okay?

oh, of course, she says, as if i haven’t stumbled across this unholy act, a literal catharsis. why are you here?

perhaps i can trust her. we are trespassers of sorts, defiling this neutral space for our sacrilege. in the morning it will be clean again.

maybe we will, too.

yet as of now, we are empty, frail bodies, driven by a consuming

Need. the antithesis of

gluttonous girls.

fuck it, i decide. the sweet taste of truth bubbles in my throat as i search for words.

i speak to her directly. consider it my confession,

o holy mother,

blessed art thou among women.

it is thus that i say:

i was there,

not where you sit, but hunched over the dove-white sink. two days ago, barely.

wincing as bile poured from between my teeth. lifting my head to look at myself in the mirror,

perhaps only because i am Vain,

or possibly: if i don’t force myself to stare into those unfamiliar reddened eyes

at those hollow cheeks, blistered lips, sallow skin,

i will never again recognize myself.

it is atonement, some subconscious perversion of the sacrament.

maybe i say this all in my mind,

but she Understands.

we are twins in a way.

and i see her in the hallways, sometimes, and we smile, remembering that

moment,

three am, a time when we were Empty together-

or simply when we were not alone,

and i can recognize the beauty in that.