Awkward Years

[ariii]

I'm a little nervous to post a poem for the first time, but here goes ~

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Awkward Years

I am twenty two and mania has abandoned me
leaving twenty pounds in its place, sandbags around my hips
and waist. I wonder
if the orange curls snaking from under my fast food visor
are secretly ugly
and no one is telling me
if the scars on my arms are obvious, or not,
and if the adult-onset acne taken home on my chin
will ever fade back to freckly white.
I do everything for an audience, even this lousy poem,
and nothing in private.
My internal dialogue is constantly dissected
by the part of me who "knows better",
twice a day I swallow salt pills
and hope they won't kill me
before I learn to live, really,
and

I miss the girl I was
self assured in her social worker shoes
not buffeted
hospital to hospital
gurney to gurney
pills in her belly
too many, too many.
I miss hot days in the city
where the steam rises from the sidewalk
an aura of freedom
riding the twelve bus downtown
past Voodoo Donuts.
Now, all I have
is a dog and some daydreams
visions of grandeur laid to rest
at the foot of my former insanity.
Who was she,
this girl with the shoes, the smile, the cardigan
half buttoned
and where can I find her
and do I want 
to bring her home?