Poetry by Megan Finkel

                 ​katie chao and ben muessig CC




elegy for two addicts (in the end i save myself)

no matter how hard you cry / or try to fight /or claw / tomorrow will arrive at the edge of night to meet you / whether you are sober // or sick // or coddling your next //// relapse //// the future is rising from its / dusty bed / of / dead things / with the light of dawn to embrace you / even if you reinvest in /// your addiction /// tonight with / me / shivering under your sheets saying / no / no / no / tomorrow will not cancel its plans to come into the city / a causal voyeur / we expect is a / clandestine devotee of chaos / as if / it didn’t know // our suffering // or / didn’t care / breathing fresh air mingled / with shit / whispering portents for us to log in / spiral notebooks /// substance abuse disorder presents the / freudian / death / drive in the user / you empty / your aggression into me / unknowingly / but / does it / not / also reveal to us the / nietzschean / affirmation to say // yes // to life / everything you do you do / in excess / & the night is young / & empty / & waiting to be filled / whether it be by / your laughter / & my screams / & a thousand & some odd neural receptors // seething / i am a puddle of water wishing to be picked up like a bundle of sticks / though bones cannot rub / together / to create / heat / we shiver / & melt time / to a smooth silvery // substance to ingest /// with whatever is brought up from the vending machine in the night such as / twix candy bars / congealing / in / sore throats / & sprite / & hollow // stomachs aching // one night you told me // i need to be with someone who isn’t sick // the sick jokester you are / which sparked the debate of / which one of us / is // worse off // & who will tomorrow hit the hardest & / tomorrow stumbled / as always like onto a / crime scene / & everytime / i accidentally kick up a shard of broken glass / on my street / on a / drunk / & cloud-filled / saturday morning / i cannot help but remember the / one night / last winter // i ran // from union square station all the way / home / barefoot / in the rain to arrive breathless at the foot of / our bed / & there was / no glass rattling / inside my feet then / but something /// shattered /// regardless / inside of me first & then / outside / of me / between us the #1 sign of an /////// addict /////// is the stupid shameful shit they say before & after & during the duration of a high / i cannot allow myself to remember it all & / if i do i / choke / out a laugh because / this morning my mother texted me ‘the rain will be over soon’ even though she lives / one thousand six hundred & twenty eight miles / from here & / loves me through the weather app / & this is the love love love / that we never knew & two loops wrapped around us / mimicking space /// if i could write a blueprint to recovery i would tell you that / the universe / will / carry you / along though you resist / to open your eyes to your own frailty / is the strength you have been missing / everything that saves you is / an ascent / you must prepare for the climb into tomorrow / & tomorrow & / i walk by our old places & see / myself / how i used to be / now i know what love is / a bridge you start out on & never finish / where flat land & sky meet the line that is wearing thin / betrays the round earth / blends into / ash / in dark / & i have reached the other side of pain / where you tread not where my / substance / trembles on the inside / never pure // i do not let it rot // always throbbing / oh my life i have found my way to the center where it is warm / & i breathe deeply for the first time





thanksgiving in an eating disorder treatment facility

some pray to god and others beg for the strength they do not have. the food is stale and sacred. we think of our lost mothers and shed single tears. shaking heads. angry tongues. tongs hang from loose tupperware, crust develops on soft surfaces of casserole and cranberry. i pull my lips into a tight smile, nod toward a friend as her fingers rise and shake. mashed potatoes stained with gravy tastes more like saltwater than anything. our eyes drift from plate to plate and our stomachs unfurl in steady succession. oh to be those normal eaters who mindlessly pick at the delicious and surround themselves with loved ones. i remember that these are my loved ones. someone reads a poem and someone spoils a movie someone sneaks some food off of someone else’s plate. madhouse. someone refuses and someone is laughing on their own. turkey dry. listen to the gnawing of bones to pass the time. my bones tremble away from the back of my chair. rate your stress level from 1-10. fuck if i know. someone is tearing up the stuffing they will not eat and making a beautiful and monstrous mess. i hate it and cannot look away. we play a game to distract and detract from pain. two truths and one lie. one day i will be out of here and never remember my first deliberately skipped meal. one day i will learn to love and not be incinerated. i am floating above this room without my body. some of us haven’t read a book in years and some of us believe our suffering would make a best selling memoir. we obey like children at snack time. forty five minutes of designated survival, and every bite counts. i remember i hate my saliva. sounds of mastication. bile. open close open open wide. cigarette breaks. diet coke as contraband. dreams of others holding our hands. unfemininity and asexuality. music therapy. oral wow-factor. always being mindful but not too mindful. flashes of the last supper. on nights of betrayal, we eat bread. we hoard our blood behind our eyes, vision blurred. every one of us is a convert of sorts. we learn our movements by the hands of the clock, are more machine than human now. we are one another’s mouths and stomachs and quivering hands spread long across the table. a sacred ritual learned instinctually in one glance. the flavor lingers in each of us because there is no forgetting. years later i still do not forget the taste of dry dough and the acridity of a laugh mingled with a cry burning up in my nostrils. a flimsy white paper plate with my name on it rests unburdened by crumbs. we vacate the table, notice but do not understand how we have changed. the communal body severs. please identify what you are feeling in the aftermath. there are twenty seven emotions. all i taste is the pie crust made by no one’s mother. i think how one day i will run and no one will stop me then. i wait to feel weightless again and again and still cease to be ruinous. what else is there to be other than victim? survivor. coming out alive. a smile ripping cellophane into tomorrow.  


​


i know what it means to be living in the one little house on fire

A week after meeting me, a girl in my therapy group
told me i was the ‘ultimate couch burner’

Colloquially, this term means an unwanted guest 
someone who overstays
their welcome; they might trash the living room, eat too
much food, smoke all the weed in the house,
take advantage of the good graces of their
hosts

In this case, we mean something different,
we are talking about a daughter
a space neither positive nor negative that
no one can decide whether to fill or empty
something left on a cluttered counter
a smile to tend to or let fall, the echo that
goes round and round a small, dark room
like the halo around a scintillating flame

No one wants a couch burner
so why did this girl who somehow ended up sharing a piece of my
fate come to call me one? i didn’t want to be called
what i already knew i was,
unwanted

i liked the way it sounded though
i liked the word burn especially

i pictured the glisten of the television screen
transcending years of distance
and the back of my father’s head shaking
underneath him flames starting to lick so
slightly no one notices

i do not have to say a thing to bring the whole
house under siege, red at the center
the sun coming into full view

i think the girl got it right 
something burned

Unwanted or abandoned,
feelings that teach the heart to hate
my hand that cast the first stone 
i ruined my family with a single stone

i shook ash from my collarbones like dust off an
old shelf and was born again and again
the phoenix who could gaze through each window
watches a family burn and die in the burning

A couch ablaze, my tongue thick from waiting
i give a response this time that is more than a whisper
distinguishing myself from the dying flame i started

I started a fire to make way for this life





i did not hear the echo

i went to some poetry 
summer camp
in new england 
when i was fifteen 
after getting treated for
my eating disorder 
my instructor who was
mainly not a poet
but a playwrite
asked me at the end of one
session in which the
entire class had read my
poem she asked me
if i had ever been in
a mental hospital
or tried to kill myself
i said no
well sort of

well how about this
opening all the windows to
ur bedroom on the coldest
day of the year
in a bra and period
blood stained fruit of
the looms not enough
to ward off goosebumps
convinced that this
is exactly what it feels like
to be dead

my death drive is passive
a pet i forget to feed until
it yowls

i called my mother one night
my freshman year
of college thinking that if
i went to the ER someone 
could stop me from choking
on my own breath
i wanted to be taken seriously for once
she asked if i was a threat
to myself 
more specifically if i was
contemplating suicide
i said no
but i don’t think i’m going to
survive this

i survived 
took my mother‘s
advice and swallowed a handful of
the pills i had been prescribed
that were less intense than my old
pills because the old pills
i got dependent on
due to a combination of
genetic predisposition
and a supposed lack of self-control 

fast forward to
the guy who tattooed 
an alan watts quote on my
left ribcage two nights ago
asked me when it was
over if i heard my bones
i said no
was i supposed to?
some people can hear the 
hollowness of their bones
when they get a tattoo there
he told me
and i felt like melting
salivated on the spot
because that is what i
have wanted to feel my 
entire life
but for some reason i
wasn’t like the others who
got to listen to their bones
i ask him
is it like an echo?
well he tells me
sort of
​
​

Megan Finkel (she/her) is a queer writer studying Comparative Literature and Russian language at NYU with a passion for mindfulness, mental health awareness, and authentic expression. You can find her on Twitter @megfinkel and her Instagram which follows her journey of self-love and full eating disorder recovery @meganeatingfood.

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