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Content Warnings (CW): suicide, eating disorders

Ketosis

Astrid Bridgwood

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We are God’s graduating class. Chalk it up to being raised starving 
In a culture half-sick and hollow-hungry. Chalk outline of a body 
On melting asphalt. My high school’s one successful suicide, 
Reduced to a brochure. Facts include: she had a fake English accent 
& a friend she left behind in her hometown. It is nine in the morning;
I am throwing up in a bathroom sink. We are in first period lecture 
Like dogs licking the plate clean. We are God’s anti-bullying seminar.

 

We are God’s untied shoes. Brain defaults to bloat, a body bulbous 
Washed-up, salt-soaked. Thrown overboard to drink dry the ocean. Girl
Falling in a fountain outside our public library. Girl flat on her back
In my bedroom. Girl reflected and warped. I am an open mouth; 
I am always chewing. White-toothed secret: the purity of disuse. I am living
In my body, I promise. Formaldehyde drunk through a candy-striped straw
We are preserved-pink brains in perfect crystal. We are God’s dirty dishes. 

 

We are God’s first good morning. The radio says it will be a hot winter;
August’s green light reveals I am not good at being anorexic. 
The car lurches. I am on my way to work. We are not transcending youth,
We are wasting grey-sick in our skin & hungry for rot like flies 
Like vultures. We are carrion. Dead things in summer heat 
Cooking on a desert campfire, some small animal caught 
Meeting her coal-black end. We are God’s last home-cooked meal. 

 

Astrid Bridgwood (they/them or she/her) is a nineteen year old poet from North Carolina whose work has been called "visceral and frightening". You can find her featured in Olney Mag, Not Deer Mag, and Corporeal Lit Mag, among others, with work upcoming in publications like Ink Drinkers Poetry. Most recently, she was a semifinalist for the 2021 James Applewhite Poetry Prize. Follow her on Twitter @astridsbridg.

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