if you want the truth about weight loss, listen up:  
WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO BEAUTY.





somewhere there’s a young girl
hunched over a toilet bowl,
***** dripping down her chin.
her mascara has been smudged by her tears.

is that beautiful to you?



somewhere there’s a young boy
hating himself because
he doesn’t look like the models
he sees in magazines.
his skin is covered in self-harm scars,
byproducts of the toxicity he sees every day.

is that beautiful to you?



somewhere there’s another young girl
who has turned herself into a walking skeleton.
she’s so skinny that her body
stopped menstruating a long time ago
just to keep her alive.

somehow, she still gets pregnant.
she’s so happy about this pregnancy.
she has something to live for now.

and then the doctor comes in
and tells her that she can’t have her baby.
she is too skinny to bring
that pregnancy to full-term.
if she tried, her baby would die,
and so would she.

she has an abortion.
she holds her friend’s hand
in the waiting room.
this isn’t a close friend,
but she had no one else to call.
she is terrified.

a few weeks later,
she is dead.
she finally gave up.

a 19-year-old girl
is buried in the same ground that
would have held both her and her baby.

a 19-year-old girl
is buried in the same earth
that she should still
be walking on today.

is that beautiful to you?





there are children soaking juice
into cotton ***** and ******* on them
to distract themselves from their hunger.

there are men and women in hospitals
with G-tubes protruding from their noses,
being force-fed whatever life
they have left.

there are students passing out
from pure starvation
when they try to stand up
to leave their classrooms.





and all of those stories?

the girl by the toilet,
the boy with the scarred skin,
the girl who didn’t live past 19?

those aren’t just stories. they’re real.
they are people I know,
or I guess I should say
they are people I once knew.





I was the friend in that waiting room.
I was one of the last people to see that girl alive.
I was one of the last people to hear her voice.

I have had to hold my friends’ hair back
while they throw up everything
in their stomachs.

there are entire nights that I have spent awake
watching my friends to ensure that
they didn’t end their own lives that night.

at such a young age,
I have witnessed more pain
than some of you could even imagine.
and I am far from the only one.



*

if you still can’t understand this,
I’ll simplify it for you:

WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO BEAUTY.

WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO HEALTH.

THE NUMBER ON A SCALE
DOES NOT LESSEN A PERSON’S VALUE.

WEIGHT IS NOT SOMETHING
THAT DEFINES WHO A PERSON IS.

WEIGHT IS PORTRAYED UNREALISTICALLY.

THE GOALS YOU ARE REACHING FOR
MAY NOT EVEN BE REAL.

“PERFECT” BODIES DON’T EXIST.

SOMEONE’S WEIGHT LOSS OR LACK THEREOF
IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS. AT ALL.

and most importantly,

WEIGHT LOSS
SHOULD NEVER
BE A DEATH SENTENCE.

my mother left,
and my father didn't want
the burden of replacing her.

and the man I met
when I was much younger
had those big brown eyes
and a Ted Bundy soul,
the perfect subject of
a true crime novel.

the pores on his skin held
flagpoles with red flags
masked beneath white fabric.

he was evil hidden behind
picket fences painted white.

he had pearly white teeth
and unsuspecting white skin
and a fancy white car
parked in the driveway
of his nice suburban house
with white shutters.

he was a clean, pure man
with no scuff marks visible
on his polished reputation.

he was so white
that no one could believe
there was such darkness
inside of him.

he replaced my father,
but not in the same way.



and my dyed hair and
tattooed skin and
teenage recklessness

****** piercings
and fishnet stockings
and dark makeup and
choker necklaces

masochistic tendencies
and nights spent in
small towns and strange beds

bottles of cheap *****
that were probably stolen
and the scent of marijuana
and all of that self-hatred

took the empty seat of
the girl I once was.



daddy issues replaced
my childhood innocence

and vibrators and little bags
of happiness in powder form
moved into the drawer
that my Polly Pocket dolls
once inhabited.

mascara-stained cheeks
and eyes red from crying
or cigarette smoke or drugs
or maybe all of the above
shoved their way into
the bathroom mirror,
replacing my reflection.

pessimism stood where
my hope should be.

panic attacks and **** kits
gave birth to trauma,
and trauma settled down
inside of my head.

guilt wedged its way
between my ribs

and the air in my lungs
was still there but
it didn't want to be

and something I still
haven't identified
closed my mouth
and taped it shut.

silence sank into the house
where the noise of laughter
and Spongebob episodes
had vanished long ago.



and somewhere between
my mother's disappearance
and my father's anger and

meeting a hollow body
of a man filled with
shame and secrets

and that first cut on my skin,
now raised and scarred,

and the phone call
that told me my
best friend had died

and another man
entering my body
without my permission,

I was hit with the
realization that my life
was stolen from me.



somewhere along the way,
I lost myself

and I don't like the
person who replaced me.

humans are
a strange species.



we suffer through war,

but weren't we the ones
who designed weapons
built to hunt our own kind?



humans are a
strange species.



we cry over death,

but weren't we the ones
who invited death here
in the first place?