Anorexia is not collar bones.
It is the smell rotting of flesh as you dismantle your body bit by bit.
Anorexia is not a thigh gap, it is your knees so weak they shake as you fall to the ground.

Anorexia is not self control. It is the feeling of utter hopelessness as your life tornados into a blizzard of nothingness.

Anorexia is not fashionable. It is your mother’s sobbing eyes as she sees her child dying
Anorexia is not 80 pounds. It is the weight of a thousand pulsing suns on your shoulders.
A thick black cloud in your mind, and rules spelled out like chains pulling you towards the ground.
No matter what measure of gravity that you have in this earth, it still hurts, it’s still real.
So to you 'pro anas' who so blindly say 'hunger hurts, but starving works' think before you act.
Suffering is an addiction, please do not harm yourself with this affliction.
- *Emily Ward

I fell in love at a McDonald’s. I expected it to happen in an overpriced cafe or a fancy Italian restaurant, but it happened at a McDonald’s and it was love all the same.

We were on our way back from the beach. We went whale watching but the ocean could have been empty for all the fish we saw. We paid good money for a caricature of the two of us. The graphite image of a happy couple with our faces sat in the back seat of your car. It would be framed and put up. We went into the sea as deeply as we dared and laughed and screamed as the waves came and came and came.

We were driving home with bits of mountains and boulders stuck between our sandaled toes and that’s when you pulled into a McDonald’s.

You ordered a sandwich, 100% real beef, never frozen, and asked me what I wanted. I said I would have the same. 100% real beef. Never frozen. I hate spending time and money on that which can only be consumed. We sat down with our food underneath the fluorescent lights next to a Happy Meal kiosk and I decided that I was in love with you and it was love all the same.

They warned me often about my lavish spendings
and reckless lifestyle.
They warned me with heavy words like

poverty,
sleep,
children,
future,
hunger.


But I would not listen.
So they gathered and talked amongst themselves.
Planned for the day I would come late,
Asked that I followed them to get some latte
Then we parked at the place of initiation.

Women talking in languages other than my fluent tongue,
Smokes and fires! Firewood and charcoal!





Three days later, I'm driving to Aromire Road
For my steady diet of akara* and bread.

"Oh Seye, you now eat 'bean cakes'?"

Sun settled over
beetroot sky, like
mother hen over
clutch.

And I could smell
the beetroots burning
against horizon
shift.

Sizzle-flip
and turn them over.
Leaking pale red into
the sea.

One dimensional folding paper,
greaseproof (we presume);
Wrap it up, tape the ends.
Send light to the moon.

Butter me up
Roll me over
Red rover red rover
let Orville come over.

Pop it up
Fill the cup
Handfuls down
Popcorn crown.