(You’d only just begun . . .)

You were a crush to all the fellas,
with a voice that made the nightingales jealous.
Inside you, though, was a fiendish demon
who, when you dined, started wailin’, screamin’:

“Let everybody taste your dinner!”
So you got thinner, thinner, thinner.
Or if you ate at all, an urge
would surge in you to purge and purge.

On stage your glee and vitality
were a treat, a joy to hear and see,
with songs like “We’ve Only Just Begun.”
Flyin’ before the risin’ sun,

your passion flew toward eager ears—
So much of life ahead—your years
of livin’ shockingly cut short
by ipecac, said the news report.

Its bitter taste could not avert
your need to swig it nightly. It hurt
your heart, a heart so very young
and as vibrant as the songs you’d sung.

“Cured,” we thought when you relished eating,
yet didn’t know you still were heeding
the demon. At length it won the battle.
Only your death made it skedaddle.