When I was in the lunch line at school yesterday,
a girl in my class was in front of me.

I was about to tell her I liked her style
when the stupid words that slipped out of her mouth
stopped me from releasing the compliment.

I kid you not, she turned to her friend and said:
"I wish I had the willpower to be anorexic."

In a society with glossy magazines,
weight loss tips,
and skinny naked models smashing adolescent
girls over the head with their frail ***** hands,
this is really how people think.

This is how the girl in the lunch line thinks.

But little does she know
that having the “self control” over food and calories
and the stupid number on the scale,
hovering under her feet in evil red numbers leads to absolute insanity.

Little does she know
that after she skips a meal for the first time,
she’ll already be hooked,
drawn in by the smiling faces of substantial women on the magazines covers
as she checks out her new diet pills from the supermarket.

Little does she know that the food she isn't eating will slow her brain more and more each day, simultaneously slowing her mental capacity to a grinding halt, unable to respond with a new excuse each time her family asks, “why aren't you eating dinner?”

Little does she know
her beautiful silky hair will begin falling out, her period will stop,
the pounds will keep shedding off,
her body growing slower and weaker until finally...
someone notices.

Someone notices her grades slipping,
her never ending daydreaming,
the way she chews her nails,
the space between her thighs holding her legs apart so they don’t rub together
in her new double zero skinny jeans
That slide off her hips.
Someone notices not only how empty her stomach is,
but also her eyes and her brain and even her veins
from self hatred and slicing insults into her wrists,
words like “fat” and “worthless” and “I want to die.”

Little does she know
that the time she now spends at the mall,
at dance class,
at school or with her boyfriend
will soon be devoted to lonely nights at the hospital hooked up to a feeding tube.

The feeding tube will cram nourishment down her throat,
but she won’t see it as that,
no she will see it as fat on her thighs,
her boyfriend’s refusal to touch her,
the laughter from her friends when they go prom dress shopping and she can't fit into the anything she tries on.

she'll sit in silence as her parents figure out what to do with her,
as they hunch over therapy bills
and doctor bills
and the hope that their little girl will be okay. She doesn’t know the look on her mom’s face
when she has to see her baby girl’s cut up thighs
to make sure she didn't cut too deep this time.

Little does she know
that eating disorders are not just a fad,
not some quick diet to drop pounds.
No, she doesn’t know
that once you’re in, you’re in in for life. There’s nothing “strong” about not eating for four days straight
just to feel lovely,
there’s nothing beautiful about weak bones and thin hair
and cold metal scales,
so stop romanticizing my reality.
You want an eating disorder?
Here, have mine.
Take them both, since you admire them so much.
Eating disorders are a deadly disease.
But little does she know that.
So all I have left to say to her is
“Good luck.”