are we gaining or losing?

i recently found out a little friend of mine was sent to the hospital for complications from an eating disorder. She is 13 years old. i think we are very hard on ourselves.

i have not weighed
myself in months.

if people must be measured,
can we not do it in colors?
or convictions? or blushings?

numbers are for rented doorframes,
panicked metronomes, and epitaphs.

they are for crowded calendar boxes,
ransoms too much, seconds too late,
and black tallies on the wrists of jews.

numbers are for least and loss.

but let us be counted
by a more generous scale.