If you feel hungry
Drink water.
Drink as much water as you can.
Still hungry?
Go take a shower.
Take four showers for all I care.
Still hungry?
Draw a picture.
Paint your toenails.
Do anything except eat.
Someone just offered you food.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to eat it?
Are you going to waste your whole day?
Eating doesn't help anything.
You aren't even hungry.
You are the problem.
Why would you make yourself fatter?
Why feed the problem?
Stop.
Put it down.
Say no.

This is what I go through every single day.
I am getting so tired.
It *****.

I scratch at my rib cage
Nails clawing at my skin
As if I could scrape away
The extra weight I feel I've gained

It's like the devil's inside of me
He's disfiguring my bones
I fall to my aching knees
God make him leave me alone

Trapped inside my eyes I'm  screaming
The numbers on my scale are screeching
Their maniacal laughter devours my dreams
Someone save me I'm afraid to sleep


-ARI

It's not like you wake up one day

     and you suddenly hate every inch.

It happens gradually
    
     an inch at a time.

I remember where mine started

    and how it grew like wild fire.

Until it consumed me
  
     an inch at a time.

I found myself
full
after a day
of starvation
and I look in the mirror
disgusted by
not only my external
appearance
but my inner demons
as well

We have thoughts
about everything
we come in contact with,
but I never saved
my better judgments
for me

Perhaps I have used up
too much kindness
on everyone else
until there is none
left
at the end of the day
to spread through my fingertips
onto the skin
I occupy
but cannot seem
to love

And I thought I was getting better

      but then I woke up on the tile

the water had lost its heat and the burn had moved to my throat

I dreamt I looked in the mirror
I could see my backbones & I was so
happy
but a kind of sad happiness
because there's no true happiness
inside my
bare bones
but I felt alive
when I was actually
dying
and I feel like I could jump to the stars
and glow in the dark
but I couldn't barely crawl on my knees
I am so weak
Oh I'm so sorry
i can see those bones again
but now they're buried
six feet under
my skin
but they want to crawl back
with me
and I can't say no to them
I can't say no to myself
I can't say no
to these urges
in order to be able
to see what's underneath
my skin
I'm so sorry
I'm really sorry
but I can't say no
not yet.

He was 16 Trying to be
The perfect guy
Trying to make
Someone understand
How addicted he was
To self destruction
To sadness to the feeling
Of a cold blade
Of an empty stomach
There was nothing
He could say
He could only
Sit in his room
And dream about dying

you offered me food and
got angry at me for declining
and you thought you were
helping by forcing me to
eat in public places and
laughing when i couldn't
and you thought you were
a riot when you were
making hundreds of
weight jokes but truth
be told i was never worse
than when i endured the
months of torture i did
when i called myself
*yours

the mirror that whispers,
the mirror that shouts,
words of hate
and torture
and spout.
the lies it speaks
are of disgust.
the thoughts it creates
turns 'should stop eating'
to a 'must'.
the mirrors lies are tempting
to try,
but a forewarning ;
the lies will control you,
and they will eat you alive.