In health class,
they presented a visual that represented
one pound of fat, and I
can't escape the image because I have
the equivalent of 32.89
yellowish blocks in my messy girl-
body; 23% of my existence is
gelatinous and imperfect.

The magazines scream
acceptance, but the models are
size 2
and I want to make myself
bleed. "Boys love curves! Honey, your figure is
perfect."
...but it isn't about boys in
high school or men on the streets with their
***** eyes and intent to corrupt. The
struggle is in how my hip-
bones sing at the prospect of
prominence even though I could find
sustenance in nothing but lettuce and
Red Bull Zero and I would still want
to swallow razor blades and
Ipecac until the basin fills
with blood and food that
smelled too powerful
to ignore and felt like sin when it
tumbled into my stomach acid.

My size eight body doesn't look like
I'm sick because I still have
full hips and everyone sees
me with something chocolate in my
hand, and girls who eat, girls with
cellulite are never
as troubled as the models whose
ribs look like bird cages that trap
their hummingbird hearts. I tell
my friends that I'm having a bad
day, which will pass, but I've been
having these "bad days" since I was
eight years old and I saw
that the thighs exposed by my
stretchy,
orange shorts were too wide
to be beautiful. I was size
0 when I was twelve, but every-
one else was still shopping in
the children's section.

They call it body dysmorphia and
talk about self-esteem because
bulimia
is an ugly word that implies
ruined enamel, blistered lips, and
hospital gowns. Real girls let calories
nestle into their bodies because
bathrooms aren't glamorous,
and no one wants to kiss
a mouth that tastes like
*****.

My therapist's office is supposed
to feel safe, but all I want to
do is shatter the mirror and
slice my body open on the
frame's teeth. The spines of the books
on her wall remind me that other
girls have blood stained bras in
their closet, and jagged cliffs in
their minds, and maybe that should
help even though they aren't here
to hold my hair back or
stroke my arm until the earth-
quakes in my head slow down enough
that I can stand.

A boy who used to love me is
pulling away as though this
is a slow dance, and I'm
trying to hold too
tightly... My was
always an adventure film, but
the fight scenes have grown
repetitive and the special effects
have weakened with
time. No one knows when the
credits will roll, and that isn't
the kind of suspense he
wants when he has a girlfriend
and a future.
I am exhausting.

Shoelaces look like nooses when I
feel this alone because
I see escape in every-
thing.
This isn't an ideation, I
just want to
sleep.

Disgusting globules of yellow
ugliness bulge under
v-necks that used to make me
feel desirable and maybe
even powerful. Now the only power
comes from hunger
pains and the dizziness
of an empty stomach.

Senior year, and my nights are
razor blades instead of
rolling papers, rivulets of
blood replacing shots of someone's
parents' whiskey. No one wants
to be friends with girls in
sweatshirts who don't know how
to eat; we're suicide
watch, even if we don't want
to die...
I stopped writing suicide
notes. I am
fine.

The doctors call it isolating
even though I know the humane
thing to do is separate parasite
and host, especially if
they loved me before I
needed salvation...
No one signs up to be a life
preserver.