they pinched you with fingers and words stretching your body to bloated proportions
layers of heavy cream wrapped round your waist
so you hid between the library shelves during lunchtime, picking at an apple
while your body nibbled and bit away at its own soft flesh.

under your baggy, dark green sweater, skin steadily tightening over sharp bone
until your ribs were embossed on pale skin, against a fragile marble of thin veins
caged in your own skeleton, you pinched yourself and ran in circles
thinning ankles weighed down.

rustling with the stuffing of pork-filled tissues in your pockets during meal-time prayer
screaming no one understands, injustice, butter in rice, inside jacket, on your hands
dwindling arms banging doors shut, bony feet stomping an earthquake of headaches
and when you screamed at me, I barricaded myself behind walls of silence.

you were trying to peel away layers that didn’t exist, scraping until nothing would be left,
but by that time I didn’t know you anymore.