The obsession you have with the size of your hips.
They should be smaller,
Don't you think?
Oh, and be sure to do whatever it takes to have that thigh gap.
It's so worth it.
That thigh gap.
The more space the better.
The emptiness of your body.
The jutting collar bones.
Feeling dizzy.
Feeling depressed.
Worth every inch lost off your waist.
It is worth your once full and lushious hair now falling out like dead leaves.
Because you're dying.
You are killing yourself.
But it's all fine.
You're obsessed with telling yourself that it's all under control.
Isn't it?
Theres no sleep at night.
Not when your anxiety is this intense.
Not when your up planning how to skip the rest of the weeks meals.
Use that time to be productive.
Like right now.
Lying awake... obsessing.
Obsessing.
Obsessing.
But it's s all fine, right?
Because that thigh gap.
And bony fingers.
You're deliriously falling over every **** time you stand, and you think it's all still fine now?
You think it's still worth it?
Isn't it?

I know it's taking my life away.
I know it's a facade.
I know it's ruining me.
But it's also a whole part of my brain that's different.
And I can't just switch it off.
I can't just make a change.
I can't have good day after good day. There's so many ups and downs. And that's why when people say "well just eat." It's so angering because,
I. Am. Not. In. Control.
I don't want to throw up I ******* hate it. Everytime I do it I literally go "no no no. But I have to."
And when I see ice cream or bread I reach for it and it's like something grabs my hand out of thin air and breaks my wrist.
And it's a physical pain and I want to cry all the time because I hate living like this.
But I'm scared living without it, too.
It's such a comfort and that's what's most scary about it.
And I can never foresee a future for myself. I get panicked because I can't even figure out what I want right now. All I can think about is this disease.

Your voice floods my ears
At 6:45 A.M.,
"Patient Number Four, it's time
to do your vitals."

I'm standing in the doorframe
of my hospital cubicle--
right hand in yours, the nurse's,
left hand in the shredder--
or is that the wire frame that's holding
me up like I'm a head on a stake?

"Have you eaten, how long has it been now?"
I try to tell you the truth, but my mouth feels miles away, riding on the train
that you people call my throat.
And my throat has brought me here, to your pristine prison cell because
I betrayed it too many times.

"I need to get your vitals, will you come with me?"
And how do I know, how do I really know
that you are not trying to ****** me
with gleaming round numbers
and records of compliance, cooperation.
How do I know that you are not trying to re-name me in this hospital's file-cabinet language?

"I need you to follow me to the lab."
Why are you trying to take me away
from myself?--
The self I spent so many years
constructing from the bits and pieces
of black earth I dug up eagerly, fearlessly.

I cannot move to your white room--
the other flavor of white reserved
for nurses, not the oatmeal in my cubicle.
I cannot leave this arm with its chewed-up edges or this crime-scene throat
with its flapping lid.

"Please give me your arm and make a fist."
I already told you, or tried to,
I cannot give myself to you.
I have given myself away too many times
under too many names.
And I am tired, so tired,
of chasing myself back to Me.

So you drain me right there in the hallway
and seal me back up
without a kiss--
So I kiss myself on the thick vein you chose and whisper
my real name to myself
Because I am terrified, so terrified
of forgetting it.

Don’t ask me how I feel about food
because you’ll find yourself lost in stories
that glorify pathological eating patterns.
Yes, I am a loud-mouthed *******.
Yes, I will tell you
about the time all I ate on a Wednesday
was a single mustard packet
and you better believe I held the near-empty plastic sleeve
under my desk
ripped it open
and brought the splayed-out wrapper to my lips.

How about the Saturday night my roommate left
for her boyfriend’s house.
I waited for the sound of her car
pulling out of the driveway
then spent the next two hours
eating bowl after bowl of frosted cereal
and throwing them up one after another
until I couldn’t feel my jaw.

Breath in the madhouse
freezes in air like ice.
The drip drip drip
of life
turns inward like a hooked nose.
It is time for the melting,
it is time to have your own breath caught
and put away neatly like mugs in a cabinet,
away from the lips,
away from the throat
with its noble muscles.
It is time to be saved
from your own spent mouth
that bleeds ***** and lies, lies, lies.

I stare down my straw.
It’s floating in a cold beige soup
that I must drink
like some perverse mother’s milk.
Two table wardens pretend not to stare.
But they do stare
in quick flashes and sideways glares--
they’re supposed to be my mothers
teaching me how to get fat again.
The clock ticks forward
its hands make puncture wounds in my eyes
that mimic mouths.
I shift in my chair and my thighs slide
in my own anxious mess.
One warden opens her mouth to speak
but a cough comes out instead.
I do not take a sip
and the clock yawns.
I do not take a sip
and the clock gives up its patient dance and
the warden who coughed pours the contents of my glass
down the drain.
I ask if she could pour me out too--
*****-by *****.
She rolls her eyes at the spread of my thighs
that beg to be fed--
I do not drink.

Women like me
tear their hair out
over things like this--
calories in peanut butter
the bit that’s left on the spreading knife
after your sandwich is stacked and sliced in four neat triangles
(you already dipped the corners in bleach)
Blood in your toilet bowl
from vomiting too passionately
your esophagus is eating itself up
(you don’t go to the doctor, you don’t even tell your mother)
A clogged kitchen sink
the disposal blades wound tightly
with the spaghetti you poured out like tight little worms
(you blame your roommates for the mess)
And the quiet ache of every muscle
that refuses to relax
when all you want to do is sleep.