GILLIAN, UNARMED

Content Warning: discussion of eating disorders

our bus ride home is five songs long. six, 
if she chooses short ones. with lips split 
by fake smiles, we mouth the words together 
as heat sticks our bodies to the vinyl seats.
if she sees my hair break and fall away 
as i pull it back under my hat, she says 
nothing. all our fights are silent, battles 
of who can “forget” to eat for longer, 
whose ribs stick out more under graphic
tees that grow loose—we’re both losing.
when i notice bruises on her knees, fingernails 
cut short, i say nothing. the jealousy is loud 
enough, eating at us as we starve, as we wait 
to see who will cave in faster. we may both die 
before a winner is declared.

i take back the other half of my earbuds 
as we get off the bus. the sun starts to set 
behind the brick building where the bus
has left us, and we look at each other 
like lovers, trying to memorize faces 
that are crumbling under the weight 
of self-hatred. waiting for our dads 
to pick us up, we share our daily dose 
of empty promises, swearing to keep 
down dinner this time, to put away our calorie 
counts and fight for, not against, each other.
we both know how this goes.
in the morning, we don’t say what is certain: 
that nothing has changed. our bus ride to school 
is five songs long. six, if i choose short ones.
every day we are learning what it’s like 
to fight a war we will never win. 

Gavin Holland (they/them/theirs) is a transmasc agender poet originally from Maryland but currently located in Boston. They received their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Emerson College (‘23). Their work has appeared in the Sucarnochee Review, and they were the winner of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting’s Fighting Words Poetry Contest in 2018.