Because its 2am
                                
                                                and im sitting in my bedroom alone

    thinking of ways to **** myself
                  thinking of reasons to hate myself  

                                                                  while you're sleeping



because I told you I was fine.

step number one: read the book wintergirls.
tuck away every detail like you're cramming for a test.
dog-ear the pages and carry it with you like a travel guide.
decide that with your fingers and toes always icy cold for as long as you can remember,
you were destined to be a wintergirl.
reread it periodically, for inspirational purposes.

step two: download the myfitnesspal app.
use it to track every calorie you put into your body.
memorize that an oreo has seventy calories, an apple has one hundred, a cup of hot chocolate has eighty,
a bagel has two hundred seventy (a number that terrifies you),
and on and on and on.
let numbers float behind your eyes just before you go to bed,
and let them stay there as you throw off the covers to do guilty pushups and situps in your room
for twenty minutes (burning one hundred and twenty calories).
ignore the warnings shouted at you in red text
when you eat less than twelve hundred calories per day.
look at the projections it gives you for five weeks from now
with weights that seem both too small and too large at the same time.
when your net for the day hits the negatives after weeks of trying,
feel the slightest pang of satisfaction.

step three: find your "thinspiration".
make a tumblr just to look at pictures of jutting-out spines and thigh gaps and ribs.
hold your phone up next to your reflection in the mirror
and pick out everywhere your body differs from hers.
when the girls on the fitness blogs start looking too heavy for your goal,
find the eating-disorder blogs.
obsess over their bodies almost as much as you obsess over yours,
but not quite as much.

step four: begin losing weight.
imagine yourself floating away, feather-light.
imagine yourself becoming skin and bones.
imagine this as you drag your heavy body from class to class,
as your muscles waste from malnutrition.
imagine this as you have to clean your hairbrush out
three times while you work tangles from your hair.
imagine this as you snap at anyone and everyone,
as you spend hours locked in your room.

step five: become a poet and write about yourself.
romanticize your own demons, just by calling them demons.
use as many metaphors as you can,
to avoid the harsh language of the truth.
and especially avoid writing about the crippling guilt
that hits you when you eat too much,
you're fat you're worthless you'll never be anything,
and hits you when you don't eat enough,
what's wrong with you how did you let it get to this point
voices in your head never abating.
avoid writing about your lack of motivation and constant exhaustion and always,
always, use words that imply mystery.
describe your mind as foggy, call your body diminishing.
never say it how it is, because you could convince yourself to quit.
never say that it's torture and you're in pain
and you just wish you were eight again, never considering this path.
never say that you need help but you don't want help.

if you have the urge to say these things,
say only that this disorder is not one you would willingly give up,
because you finally have something to control.
because it is the truth,
but it is also the romanticized truth.

God, I want to be real with you, but sometimes its really hard.
Help me to let go of what I think what I know about You, my spiritual journey, and who I am.

I open myself up to you, so I may experience You in my life.

Help me cut through my own *******, so I am honest with myself.

I give thanks for my life.  Please help me to breathe deeply today, so I may be present to people that I think are "*******."  Help me to get to know them as people, and connect to them beyond what's hard about them.  I don't expect this to happen overnight, so help me to have patience as You teach me to love.

Oh yeah, and help me to love the greatest pain in the *** in my life. Me.  Help me to be compassionate and loving to myself, so I may embody Your love to others.  Thanks. Amen.

Sometimes, the only person who will be around to pick you up
off the floor
and run you a warm bath will be yourself;
and that's okay.

let it take its time.
let it drift down the river
from the top of the mountain
where it was closest to God
let it be touched by the hand
that crafted your soul
only that hand knows exactly
where it will fit.

let it take its time.
let it waft into the room
like the smell of sun-soaked rose petals
and the perfume of the love
you lost but never truly
had in the first place
only that love knows exactly
where it will not fit.

let it take its time.
let it leave the room when you enter
because it is too shy to wave
in fear that it will remind you
of the waves that crashed
against your lonely body
only those waves know exactly
where it will withstand.

let it take its time.
let the blessing tap you on the nose
and then dart away
like a snowflake that does not turn
the lake to ice
the ice that you cracked and fell through
only that lake knows exactly
where it will not withstand.

let it take its time.
and when it arrives
let it in.
greet it like an old friend
even if you have never met.
let it stay.
give it a place in your hand
and hold it to your heart.

let it take its time.
it is on its way.

you're still losing weight. i didn't know it was possible to shed the pounds this quickly.
the less you eat, the more you age. in three months, you'll have aged six years. i can't recognize you anymore. it's like parts of your soul have gone missing.

your body is what holds your mind. it holds your soul. it held me.
i know it sounds so selfish, but i want you go be who you were before.
not only were you healthy, but you were happy.
and warm. so warm.

i hope you gain back your warmth. i hope you find the pieces of your soul that have corroded in the stomach acid your force yourself to choke up. i hope your serotonin levels raise to a normal number. i hope that the color comes back to your cheeks.
i hope that you become something other than a walking corpse.

if you don't, i won't lecture you again, but i won't be able to come back. it's too hard seeing you like this. i hope you understand.
but please know that i will always love you and i will always be on your side. i believe you can do it. call me when it happens.

1.  There is nothing romantic about the way our hair falls out or the way we hover over the open toilet like there's no other empty space in the house.
2. Do not think that it will be easier to love us because the love we aren’t giving ourselves will go to you.
3. You can trail your fingers along my rib cage, count every vertebrae in my back like marbles stacked high on top of each other. This is not beautiful, this is what dying looks like.
4. I’m sorry for the smell of my breath, but there’s no amount of toothpaste that could cover up the smell of myself rotting from the inside out.
5. “I thought you had to be skinny to have an eating disorder.”
5.   “You don’t look like you starve yourself.”
5.   I know that you wish you could hold me without worrying i’ll turn to dust if you squeeze too hard.
6.   I grew up being told that my body is a temple and I should treat it as such, but I don’t think this is right, see; temples can be destroyed but it always takes another person. I am doing this to myself.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate without feeling guilty.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate.
8.   One day, I will be nothing and you will be nothing, and i’m sorry that i’m already so close to being gone.
9.   I want to get better. I am trying to get better.
10. Do not think that loving us will be easier, because the love we do not give ourselves is gone, and we cannot love you more than we don’t love ourselves.