I want to be perfect- not like those who let food control them. I want to be beautiful, to sprout wings of feathery white and soar away at will. I want a body made of lace and silk, not cotton and burlap and worms who open their mouths to bare their razor-sharp teeth and coil into tight, sloppy ***** of grease inside my veins. I want to live clean, but I don't want to die empty. I don't want the fate of the doily-***** girls who haunt the dusty corridors of psychiatric units, scurrying about, waiting to expire like meals hidden beneath bed frames and floor boards. I don't want to smell of mold, to have an empty heart or a dehydrated brain that can only form thoughts of calorie intake and deficits. And yet, I want to be perfect. I want to dance atop snow and leave no footprints. I want to fly high enough that the birds are jealous and wish to know my infinity. But I will not fall head over heels in love with an empty plate and a vacant body. I will not lay to waste the fertile soil of my womanhood and become best friends with a barren womb. I will not allow double digits to ****** me and dizzy blackouts to consume me. I will fight. I will fight, tooth and nail these demons that inhabit my tiny frame and play music of nightmares on the bones of my ribcage. I will honor the memories of the emaciated valkyries lost in battle before me by never letting Ana defeat me. She lies and consumes the meat of you, chunk by chunk until all that is left is your sorry, broken soul, riddled with wormholes. So no, I will not give in. I will not lose all that is good and pure in me for the promise of weightless perfection. I will feed my body and I will love myself and I will tattoo it on my ribs and the bones of my spinal cord- "I am enough."

Rebecca Madeira
2.21.16 (C)