Every meal is hard to swallow
With you present at the table
My stomach rumbles
Yes, in pain
The swifty of my ways
I absolutely hate eating with you
Yearn to I do, retch
The unpleasant time
In which should be my fathers
My hero, NO MATTER WHAT
You take his place at the table
But never, will you EVER have a place in my heart
Ruined it you have for yourself
Many not once a time
including grandmother, has she despised you.

Bony parts bruise faster.
I think to myself.
I look down at my arms. They are tinted yellow from the fading bruises.

Fatty parts bruise harder.
I think to myself.
I look down at my thighs, they have black spots scattered over them.

I sigh and touch my collarbones protruding from my body.
I stack the coins. I can fit 17 on each collarbone.

I look in the mirror and I know I am looking at a hollowed out skeleton, but all I see is me .. just as I've always looked, grey, boring, ordinary...

i am broken
like a carousel off its axis;
lost,
because I have to figure out how to fix this
shattered mind
with no blueprints for what a stable one looks like;
hopeless,
in a world that shoves happiness and recovery
down my throat anyway;
someone
who lives only for the sake of others
those who mistakenly believe i can be saved;
soulless,
because for all that i feel
none of those emotions touch me
deep enough to pull me out of this void
i'm living in.
i am.
dying
and already dead inside.

Through and through my mother is anorexic
You would be too if your environment was toxic
I can’t help but be sad when I come home late at night
And she’s asleep on the couch with tear stains from a fight
I bring back food from the restaurant I work at
She says she can’t have it because she’s too fat
Eventually she caves and I get her to eat
Fish, broccoli, fries, and red meat
She tells me it’s too late at night to eat snacks
Although she’s a normal weight her bones still sound like they crack
It’s now 1 am and I go to turn off the tv
She quickly wakes up and stairs blankly right at me
“Leave it. And turn the heat on”
She says to me, fighting a yawn
Before I leave I notice the wrappers
A caloric binge had clearly trapped her
And tomorrow I’m sure the cycle will repeat
As the image of my mother withers and retreats

Are you're doing it in a healthy way?
Are you watching what you eat?

Yeah.. That's why I didn't have a bun with dinner.

What I didn't tell her is that watching what I eat means
watching what i would normally eat sit on the shelf
watching what i would normally eat go to others
watching what i would normally eat shrink off my body

She says I've gotten smaller
My coworkers say I've gotten smaller

I don't see it

When someone asks if I've eaten I just avoid the topic or say I've had enough

If someone is concerned I laugh and say "I'm back on my anorexic *******"

"Everyone wants to be a little anorexic" she says

"You know, like, in a glamorous way, like fashion friendly anorexic"

I bite my cheek and nod, pretend to agree

All I can think of is waking up to stars dancing on the ceiling

Pale skin with bruises of unknown origins

And battered feet on and off the scale

Almonds in Ziploc baggies

Bite marks on fingers

Hair down the drain

Measuring crunches by the marks they leave on your spine

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough water to turn organs into boats

Eating an apple with a fork and knife

Desperate hands grasping for ribs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Standing and the world going dark

Coughing around shots of apple cider vinegar

Carrying an emergency rice cake for weak spells

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough green tea to drown organs

Sugar free gum to mask the smell of decaying organs

Whatever nail polish covers yellow and purple

And battered feet on and off the scale

How many calories are in toothpaste

Thinspo blogs

Pillows squeezed between thighs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Is today the day my heart gives out

Waking every day in a new body

Fingers clasped around wrists

And battered feet on and off the scale

Notebooks filled with numbers

Purple crescents under eyes

Fingers clasped around forearms

And battered feet on and off the scale

Elbows knocking into hipbones

Being scared of your own reflection

Lies to get out of dinner

And battered feet on and off the scale

The stench of *****

Oxygen that tastes of Splenda

Fingers clasped around biceps

And bleeding feet on and off the scale

 

If this is your idea of glamour

Then you can have it

We grew up together
Two peas in pod
You were my sidekick and I was yours
My one true platonic soulmate

So how did I let this happen?
How did I not know what was
Happening behind the four walls of your mind.
Behind the baggy sweaters that
Were suddenly "fashionable" all year round.

But if I think back carefully
Maybe I didn't miss it
Maybe I just ignored it

Ignored how when you got back from your
Summer in France the snug hoodie I gave you
Was no longer very snug
But rather hung like an ornament
On the thin frame of your body

Or how your legs began to resemble sticks
With a thigh gap most girls would die for.
Maybe I should have known the first time
You refused to eat your favourite ice cream
(chocolate mint chip) because calories!

When you told me you were in hospital
You said you were sick
But not in the way I thought you were
Because you didn't have chicken pox
Or pneumonia or bronchitis
You were sick in way that was much more twisted
You had a sickness of the mind
One that toyed with your thoughts
And messed with your sense
Until your body was wasting away.

I must admit at first I was angry
Because how could you keep this from me
I was your best friend and
You never told me your biggest secret
However then I was shocked
I could not understand
how you were in so much pain
And yet I did not know.
How had I cried for months
Proclaiming pain and suffering
That I believed no one could relate too
And yet here you were
Silently proclaiming the exact pain .

It starts with a slip,
A turn of the cheek.
Simply forgetting to fit,
A meal for your body to keep.

You see, at this point,
It isn’t really starving.
For I forget only when I’m not hungry.
But the problem is,
I’m so used to being hungry
That I can’t tell the difference.

I thought I was better,
Until my boyfriend asked why he’s never seen me eat.
Until I was asked when the last time I ate was.
Until I faint, and I’m reminded to eat.

But now when I eat,
I have an Apple.
But I get sick,
Because it was too much food.

I can’t keep anything down,
So I have no choice but to not eat.

And so the cycle repeats.

It's funny how when you were younger, you would say in your mind,"I would never do that." Here I am doing all the things I said I wouldn't do, self harm, anorexia, suicidal thoughts.