At 15 I started telling myself how fat and worthless I was.
At 15 I stopped eating for two months.
By the age of 16 my thighs were covered in battle scars.
At 16 I learned what it was like to pray every night that I wouldn’t wake up to see the sun.
At 16 I swallowed a bottle of pills and had my stomach pumped in the middle 3rd period.
At 16 I woke up in a hospital and crying and screaming because I wasn’t dead.
At 16 I was told my depression and anxiety were just cries for attention.
At 16 I learned what it was like to feel the rejection from the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally.
I learned what it was like to feel the love my parents used to have for me drain out of their eyes.
So I maybe 16 but I feel like I am a thousand years old. I have fought battles you cannot even begin to imagine.
I have endured years of relentless torment and taunts, and when I asked for help I was told I deserved it.
I may be 16 but I have endured more than you ever have in your 36 years of life.
So I may not have to pay taxes.
But at 16 I have anxiety attacks over the piles of homework I have to turn in the next day.
I may not have to worry about feeding my kids.
but even after 2 years of rehabilitation I still get depressed if I eat too much.
So you tell me;
“You’re 16. What do you know?”
And my answer will always be;
“Far too much”

To the girl who swears she has never been enough,


I have heard you cry until your lungs rattle like the snake announcing itself in the desert, I have listened to the sound your heart makes when it shattered at sunset and takes all night to stitch itself back together again with fraying string. No more.


I have sat where you now sit at the kitchen table, staring at the plate in front of you and wondering if this is how each man has seen you. Your mouth doesn’t water but your eyes begin to. I have crossed my leg tighter, as you do. You ask yourself what defines an animal - if meat is only meat when we say so. No more. I have been with you as you walk down the street, the night announcing itself in the laughs and yells from the bars and the keysi between your fingers. You tell yourself you would feel better with more protection, even though by now you have built up so many walls you can call yourself a mansion. No more.


I have waited for a call by my phone for hours, as you have. I have stared at the ceiling for one hour too long, paced the length of my house for two hours, wandering for three hours straight why I am not worth the ten seconds that it takes to send a message. No more.


You are not the dry-heaves from your stomach that beg you to pull yourself together. You are more. You are not the dessert or the dinner, you are not served on a silver platter, ordered form a menu You are more. You are not street-candy, you are not “hey baby”. You are more. You are not an empty building, or  darkened alley. You are more. You are not counted in the minutes he has chosen to care for you. You are more.


To the girl who swears she has never been enough,
this time,
tell yourself,
No more.
You are more.