The first time I knew I was fat I was five
When you told me not to eat the other half of my food
Because it would make me bigger
As if I was large to begin with
A perfectly normal, healthy, happy child
Saw the light flicker in her eyes
And eventually, burn out.
From then on, you kept attempting to be my nutritionist
Where you had no place to do so.
I kept learning to restrain myself
To eat when I was hungry
But when I was hungry, I was told not to eat
I kept wandering around within myself
A stray dog, a lost thought
The candle in my mind never stayed long
Somehow, you thought shaming me would help my hips to stop protruding into the atmosphere
Would help me shrink wrap my body
To become dust, like everyone else in our thin town
Thin high school
Thin media.
When I fell in love with those hips, those thighs, that stomach
I was told to become a ghost again
Even in the wake of my eating disorder.
What no one tells you about shame
Is that the end goal is never attainable
It's like helping someone breathe
By suffocating them
It's like teaching someone to swim
By drowning them
You told me it was never about appearance
I believed you
Until you made a comment about self-mutilation after I got an ear piercing
Knowing I used to cut myself.
Making me think of all that was said and done
Since I was five years old
When you bought me gifts if I lost a certain amount of weight
When you insulted my hair, my clothes, my makeup
I learned that my body
Was nothing but a canvas
That I was supposed to erase the picture if you didn't like it
And that I was nothing by my body.
I now have a plan to get healthy
But I don't intend on telling you what it is
Because it has nothing to do with weight loss
And you will simply undermine it
As you undermine me
Every time you tell me I will fail.
You told me you did not want me to be like you
Since you let yourself go
So I keep sinking
But at least at the bottom of the ocean, dad
I can drown out the chance
That I will ever be like you.