I used to hide from a camera; shutter like the lens itself when it was even mentioned; taunting me, mocking me, shining like the sun but the camera was more toxic than the flake of the skin if I stood under it too long. I put my hand in front of it like a shield, hoping the scar wouldn’t be too deep this time when my shield failed me.

I cried when I looked into the mirror, the reflective glass not showing what I wanted to see; not showing the individual I felt like. I cried when someone joined me and tried to point out my flaws like constellations in the night sky. I am no beauty.

Lately, I have been shielding and shuttering less than before and I feel ashamed every time I reflect upon the picture like the mirror itself; the hope of beauty diminished into embarrassment. I see how hollow my eyes are, the scars on my chest and wrist that I thought were so easy to hide, I see the smile I am allowing to be hung; like a painting but it doesn’t cause others to stop and stare in awe. It only does the opposite.

I smile at strangers on the street or when I am walking along a bike trail and when they dart their eyes forward, move quicker, seem uncomfortable, I wonder to myself: is the mouth I dare to open a black hole? Will I **** everything near me inside and chew until the bits are so small that they crawl under my skin? Is that what my smile does to them? Does it haunt them?

I don’t take pictures anymore.

I consumed you like Advil; hoping you'd heal the headache I call life but instead, you damaged me like *****; blurring my sight and damaging my liver until I vomited blood. You are no saviour.

I look at her and all I can see are her imperfections; each raised scar and dark freckle begging me to point them out but I stop myself. I let myself know that her imperfections are anything but; that she is immensely aware of them and she is also aware of my gaze.

I raise my gaze to meet hers and if imperfection is on her body, then perfection is in her eyes. I see the shooting stars people wish upon and the last, endangered Indiana bat hiding in a eerie cave to escape the danger of humanity; I see the hunger in her eyes for something tough to bite on and rip, I see her loneliness; that the cave she hides in is far too large for her - even if her mind never seems to end.

There are no corners or rooms in her mind, just a straight hallway and I see it in her eyes. I see the smoke of her last cigarette curl like thunder around her pupil and she laughs with glossy eyes while I wonder how I can save her if I'm already drowning myself. Will this boulder in the midst of a current carry both our weights or will I have to hold hers and my own?

My fingers slip and she continues to laugh; I'm drowning in the cerulean blue of her eyes and the tides hit me harder than ever but she tells me to just let go and I find that pain is easier to succumb to when you're already dead.

She looks at me and says, “I tried an eating disorder once. It didn’t work; it left me hungry and bored.”

I try not to laugh in her face, to let my mouth open like it does on the nights I spend peering over the toilet; hoping something better will come out than what I forced in. Trying to forget the roll of hunger in my stomach the the thunder during a storm. I did not eat enough but at the same time, I ate too much.

She skipped one meal, told herself it was enough while I drank water and punished myself for it because even though water has no calories, what if it does? What if, like every other industry, the producers are lying for profit? I can hear their laughs in my ears - smothering, suffocating, screaming as I drink another gulp and the lump in my throat won’t go away but neither will the lump on my stomach.

She keeps her nails manicured for the boys, while I keep mine trimmed because the scratches on my throat, my torso, and thighs are trying to dig out the demons inside me; the extra pound I gained after saying ‘yes, please’ to another helping instead of ‘no, thank you, I am full’ with hunger in my eyes like the predator stalking a prey. Except who is the predator and who is the prey? I still don’t know.

She asks my why I waste my time counting my calories, while I wonder why she wastes her time watching me die. I apologise with films and popcorn filled with butter instead of air, with empty laughs and filled eyes — filled with tears as I sit in my friend’s bathroom; poised over her toilet, trying to wonder if she can hear the retching over the faucet that runs.

It runs like I wish I could; runs without a worry and I dream in class about being skinny, having curves like a river for men to ride on because men like meat, not bones but when it comes to the amount of meat I have, it is too much. I think about my grandfather telling me, if I lost more weight, the boys would come chasing and even though that isn’t my preference all the time, it makes me guilty.