Crying,
Over the bathroom scale because I think the numbers are taunting
Smiling,
Because if people actually saw how I was feeling they'd avoid me.
Hurting,
Because I'd rather bottle it up than tell anyone
Dying,
Because not eating is more appealing than being happy.

I feel it
I hate it
I can stop it. I can eat.
Food tastes guilty.
I lie,
I starve.
I hide the fact that I'm hungry,
But I'm not going to eat.
Not yet.
Not until I've taken control

Dear Body,

I am sorry
for the pain
I've put you through.

The problem never really was you.

The problem was my goal for perfection.

Be perfect or be nothing.

Doesn't make much sense.
Yet this thought made my life very intense.

I hated you deeply all of grade twelve
In dieting and restricting I began to delve

Desperately trying to diminish you.

Sadly it worked, and you became hurt.

Yet even when I was scarily thin
I never loved the skin I was in

Recovery was hard, but I did gain weight.
But relapse was my impending fate.

I loved feeling accomplished watching the number go down
But my mood and personality fatally drowned.

Who did I become?

My low mood drove me to change my ways
To try to brighten all the darker days

I regained weight.

Eating disorders are not all about weight
Or body image.

They're about repairing your relationship with yourself.

I tortured my body to achieve a goal
Hoping it would make me feel more whole.

And now here I am.

Still fighting.
Fighting to ignore the thoughts in my head
That tell me to hurt you again.

But you don't deserve that
You're worth so much more
Being perfect isn't what you were given to me for.

I am worth so much more than a number on a scale.

I must ignore the thoughts in my head
And treat my body with some respect.

Nourish and care for it, it's the only one I've got
Let media and culture's images brutally rot.
Have my drive for perfection no longer be a thought.
Accept myself and explore a lot.

When our mind is set in one way, it is easier to live our life.
When our mind is seeing two opposite things, it is draining and difficult.
When anorexia consumed me, it was easy: don't eat.
When my family made me get help, I started seeing another side.
"It is okay to eat".
When your mind is telling you two extreme opposites, it is emotionally and physically draining, makes me tired physically and mentally.
The emotional battle.
The heaviest thing would be the fork to my mouth, to finish the long difficult stride from the fork to my mouth, or to hide the food in my pockets so my family thinks I ate it.
Give in to my stomach roaring like a lion and tame the lion, or to ignore it like how I have usually done and feel myself getting skinnier to give in to the demons.
It was more distinct and different than: night and day, black and white, fire and water.
I was having a civil war with myself,
Constant battling and war in my head
"Eat" or "Don't Eat"
This was much harder than having only one thought in my mind.

My best friend's nickname is Ana.
No one can see her, but only I can feel her, everybody can see her in me.
I take it as a compliment because I am winning.
But everyone who says they love and care for me sees it as me losing and need help.
But I am winning and don't need help, winning at being the skinniest, winning at eating no calories. Winning at seeing and feeling the bones spike through my body. Doing all of this with the help of my best friend Ana. Shes all I need.
Why does everyone say I am losing, when I am winning?

The girl in the mirror will always be a stranger to me
Whenever I see her, it is always mixed feelings
One day, I see her as pretty and confident
(which is a new sight for me to see)
Another day, I see her as someone that no one will ever want to take a double take at
She sometimes looks fat
She sometimes looks skinny
I can see all her physical flaws every time I look at her
Never will I know her

We all have our addictions, whether it's big or small, or good or bad
Growing up, she had her addiction to the normal things:toys, hugs,love
But teenage years came along as well as her hormones
Always hungry
Always eating
One fateful day, someone she loved told her she was fat
Just like that, she changed
Always hungry
Never Eating
Her new addictions: starving, losing weight, coming to love they way her bones spiked through her skin as if they wanted to jump out
We all have our addictions, where it's big or small, or good or bad

Everyone has a general feeling of their own mind
She did not quite understand exactly how her mind was like
Until she started writing down all her feelings
Writing them down felt like she was organizing her own thoughts
Like looking at each small picture and then taking a step back to see the bigger picture, and fully understand it
She finally understood how her mind was like now
Hers felt so much pain and sadness
So gloomy
It was a quiet rain storm
The only thing she heard in her head was the demons telling her:
"don't eat"
"you're not good enough"
"no matter how hard you try to be special and be someone for someone, it will never happen".