Mother you should watch your girl tonight,
She's beautiful,  and it's misleading
I Saw her on the sidewalk bleeding,
Sickened by the thought of eating,
This pressure on perfection has got to end,
Before she ends up dead.

It's funny that something that could **** you
Something that probably will **** you
Can be so comforting

It's the one reliable thing you have
It's easy to fall into the patterns again
It's easy to hide it (to a point, but by that time you're too far gone)

Because it feels so good
To have your body disintegrate
To have your head swim and hands shake
It's better then the alternative, at least

I don't want to feel like I'm losing myself
But that may be the only way to go
Until my bones, my veins, they show
Because the alternative is **too dangerous

I ate too much for breakfast today
And lunch was spent wondering if I should slip away
Wondering if I should go back for seconds
**** it, why not?
My feet jiggled nervously under the table
Trying to think of an excuse to leave
Trying to figure out how much the barbeque chicken pizza would hurt on the way back up
Trying to figure out how much I’d regret it
Trying to figure out if my body was okay
My self esteem balloons up and down
Somedays I look in the mirror and like what I see,
Think I look cute and quirky in my glasses and skirt,
Think my body is almost okay
And then like black crossing over to white, like a light switch flipped on
No inbetween
All of the sudden I am ugly
My body takes up too much space
Loving myself, loving this body seem like an impossible feat
The little critic in my head is back
And he wants to move back in,
I’m not cured
Recovery is not about loving your body
Recovery is accepting it
I’m still working on that
The calculator in my head wakes up,
Regenerates every time I’m around  food
My hands still hover over the diet soda before forcing myself to pick something that scares me more
I still have to bargain in my brain
Eat a salad so I can eat ice cream and cookies
Skip lunch so I can have a big dinner
Strip naked in front of a full mirror,
Watch my body standing up, bending over, sitting
Grabbing, pinching, prodding, poking
Surveying this piece of meat
This thing
This body
That I know I need to be kind to
I weighed myself for the first time in almost a year
My toe lingered over the cold surface of a scale
Like a child about to dip his feet into water
I knew standing on that scale could drag me under
And I did it anyway
Loving myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done
When self hatred has been tamped into my soul
When my eating disorder was the only thing I good at
This secret lover, the most attentive one you could have
Took my hand and showed me how an empty stomach could feel like love
My eating disorder was my best friend,
The abusive relationship I kept going back to,
The most interesting thing about me,
The thing that was killing me
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Allowing yourself to slip into a disease out of your control
Having someone else make all your decisions
Your life reduces itself to the numbers on the scale
The slipping numbers on the scale assure me that everything is alright
But I can’t live like that
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Recovery is hard

i think my body is
falling apart and i
know it doesn't have
to but it's so hard to
help yourself when
everyone else needs
your help more

I thought the world was big enough for me;
palms that hold the ocean together so
it doesn’t escape between locked fingers,
loveless wrists that drown in the abyss where
I occupy this space that isn’t mine.

I need to be less than I am to fit in between
bars,
so I can escape the prisons of this gruesome insanity
darling, stitch my bones together before
I collapse into scattered pieces
take away from the numbers and make them smaller
like my throbbing heart
and hide those starless veins where there’s no breath
and don’t forget to make a fortress out of my dying skin
for the birds no longer sing on delicate silk sheets

My demons don't like
the food that I eat.
They taunt me, sending me
running to the bathroom in defeat.

You are not worthy, they say
as I bow at their request.
That food was no good.
now the toilet bowl is my only rest.

My heart breaks, slowly
and pained tears begin to fall.
I have nothing left to give, I say,
I've already given you my all.

I stand and try without success
to wipe my steady tears away.
Looking in the mirror at my swollen eyes
I remind myself tomorrow is a new day.

you are fragile
and the boy in the year above you calls you fat
and the girl in the row behind says you look like a rat
and you sit and think about it for a few minutes
minutes turn to hours, hours turn to days
and soon you've lost track of the last time you ate
and soon you've become obsessed with your weight
you forgot what colour your skin used to be
because your arms are covered in red lines
and you cry all the time

you are fragile
and the girl in the hospital bed groans
she is short and she is thin,
skin and bones
this girl is you
and there is only one thing you need to do
but again, all you can do is cry
all you hear the doctor do is sigh
you hear the boy in the year above has died
drunk with a car, an upsetting fate
and the girl in the row behinds period is late
when was the last time you ate?

you are fragile
and the man in the street smiles
he stares for a while
he soaks up any sadness
laughs at your jokes
you are happy -
madness
you remember what colour your skin was
and the last time you ate
because he has fixed you

*you are not fragile

I look past my reflection in the mirror;
whale-sized thighs, and
arms too big for the oceans
rain pours down like sharp daggers
into my flesh, and I’m tired
teeth hurt, and I’m tired
heart pounding, and I’m tired
my mermaid waves leave my head like
an old porcelain doll, dying
and I’m tired
I teach my body how to stop needing,
in with the calories, and I’m tired
out with the calories, and I’m really tired
silent screams echo at the fake reflection
that stares blindly through the broken
mirrors
**** me up, I’m seeing stars tonight
bones aching, and I’m smiling
bullets to the head, and I’m smiling
painstakingly dancing through the night
till I’m void of nothing,
they say empty is beautiful, and I want
so dearly to feel beautiful
calories scattered on the floor, like the
those scattered thoughts of everything
I used to be
and everything I am now
scatterbrain, tell me how you feel
when your insides are void of
self-love
you eat hatred for breakfast
and spit self-pity into your toilet
tell me again, silly girl,
do you feel beautiful now?