They count the empty spaces

the cheekbones
Admiring the expensive fur coats
Long sleeves curled around tiny fists
Pupils glassy like black ice
on the ceiling
or inside the runway lights
Airbrushing the waxy skin, the brittle bones
the pale legs and blue fingertips
Ruby red lips saying no
while her hands drip with gold
too heavy to hold the fork

Blankets and snow white sheets
Inside she swims between the numbers
adding them up in her sleep
Cold underneath the flannel and wool
past the yellow bruises, yellow arms
Clutching lunch money, unused
she forgets about the quarters in her pockets
or the water bottles on the table
or the phantom in the mirror, saying
“you’re almost there.”

Wrapped in the comforter she dreams
of chocolate milk and grilled cheese sandwiches
ice cream sundaes and mashed potatoes
of a world where the butter melts without sit-ups
and the phantom in the mirror doesn’t exist.

Then the dream ends and she wakes up
to mannequins and diet pills
skeleton legs and x-ray arms
the temptation of invisibility
But she loses herself in the velvet movie theater seats
each candy wrapper crinkle a symphony that she yearns to hear
She reaches for the music
And sees the ruby red lips saying no
the phantom on the screen, saying
“you’re almost there."