I remember with clarity
and such clear vision,
I was four years old,
and was being shown
the first time in this,
old house of bliss,
I chose my bed-room
by the street's road
window open
to birds and bees.
Spring's air smelling
Now its
my prison
as I'm scared
of the outside.
I wish to be me again
and not the grains
of loss of friends
and family,
the sand pours
without haste,
slamming doors
and this I created.
I haven't left the house
for a straight
18 months.

I tell myself I will stop after this bite.
The first bite.
The last bite.
I have said that sentence
so many times
It has lost its meaning.

Sweet turns to salt,
Salt turns to grease,
grease turns to a numb kind of warmth
That settles into my stomach
like a stone in a river.

My heart speeds up.
My jaw aches.
My hands shake,
but they don’t stop.
It’s not hunger.
It’s never hunger.
It’s the silence I’m trying to fill.
It’s the ache in my chest
That food seems to answer
for a moment—
until it doesn’t.

The wrappers pile up.
My teeth feel heavy.
My stomach swells,
tight and hot.
And that’s when it comes—
the thought,
sharp as glass:

Get it out. Now.

I move quickly—
bathroom door shut,
light too bright,
mirror watching me like a witness
I wish I could be blind.

Knees to cold tile.
Porcelain beneath my hands.
My breath uneven,
My throat is already aching
from the nights before.

I lean forward.
My body knows the drill.
The convulsion comes,
violent,
an unnatural surrender.

From my stomach
out of my mouth
My guilt goes—
Or so I tell myself.

The taste—acid, bitter,
familiar in a way that makes me sick
in more ways than one.
Eyes water.
Nose burns.
Skin flushed with the effort.

And then—
nothing.
My mind is blank,
The feeling has stopped.
I feel an emptiness-
An emptiness that should feel like relief
but only feels hollow,
like I’ve scooped myself out
and left the shell behind.

I wash my face.
I rinse my mouth.
I pretend it’s over.

My reflection is a stranger.
Hair clings to damp skin.
Mascara bleeds down my cheeks
like black rivers.
Lips swollen.
Eyes dull.

My shirt smells of laundry detergent and bile.
My stomach is empty,
And my chest feels heavy.
I’ve purged the food,
but the shame stays—
coiled around my ribs
like it owns me.

I tell myself never again.
I say it out loud,
to make it real.
But the words are paper-thin,
And I know how easily they burn.

I tell myself this is control,
But my reflection’s eyes
Do not believe me.
They are tired eyes,
Tired eyes that bulge out of my skull every time I heave-
eyes that know the lie so well
It tastes like metal in my mouth.

The mirror watches me purge
what my heart cannot carry—
fear of failure,
fear of fullness,
fear of existing
In a body I can’t forgive.

My ribs are counting the days,
My face counting the times.
I’ve measured my worth in pounds.
My throat is raw
from the war I’ve waged on myself.

But tomorrow,
The cycle will begin again.
-
This is my sickening eating disorder.

i was still there,
choking on my bitterness,
twenty minutes
after our session ended.

i felt awful. anxious.
he had a client outside,
waiting —
maybe also collapsing
under their own weight
they couldn't carry.

“look at the clock,”
i said. “let’s wrap this up.”
guilt eating away at me.

so he stood up,
reached for it,
and reset the time.

like it meant nothing.
like he knew healing
cannot be rushed,
because the minutes
are ticking.

It starts like static-
a flicker in the dark,
a shift in the air
before the collapse.

I'm washing dishes.
I'm crossing a street.
I'm laughing-
and then I'm not.

Something small tilts the world.
My chest tightens,
my skin doesn't feel like mine,
and the moment swallows me whole.

I hate how they still live in me-
their voices in the corners,
their hands on the memories
I never wanted to keep.

The anger simmers
under every surface.
For what they did,
for what they didn't,
for how they shaped me
without permission.

I trace the outlines of what could’ve been-
a word spoken,
a door opened,
a version of me
they never got to break.

But the past is a house
that locks from the inside.
I scream through the keyhole
and call it healing.

Some days I am a person.
Some days I am a symptom.
I carry both
without dropping either.

I live with tremors.
I move through fog.
I smile like nothing cracked,
and shake
when no one is looking.

And still-
somehow-
I stay.
I breathe.
I come back
to myself.

Again.