The mirror mocks my every move
Every lump I try to smooth
The mirror cons me of my happiness
Knot in my throat, stuck like this

Dysmorphia

I feel the corners of my mouth
Like they're tied to the ground
I try to fix it, try to heal
I try to replace it, the shame I feel

Dysmorphia

Feeling visceral
Indescribable
If only I could find
Something comparable

Dysmorphia

Psychological issues?

Sure.

I've got plenty.

I don't know exactly when it started
But some time ages ago
During elementary school
I just felt so worthless
Like I was numb
I wanted to feel
But I didn't know how
And it wasn't a sharp pain
I would welcome a sharp pain
It was dull ache that wouldn't leave me
I froze in my own icy thoughts
Maybe it was the loneliness
Or all the things those girls said to me
Maybe it was the insults or the whispers
Or maybe it was just my twisted mind
But whatever the cause
I tried to **** myself
When I was just a little 11 year old girl
When some girls were still playing with Barbies in secret
I was secretly playing with knives and ropes
I would take that blade
And scratch a cut into my wooden headboard
One slit in the wood for every moment that I wanted to die
Because I was too young back then to even think of my wrist
That came later
A few years later
And still
There are days where I just feel so horrible and sad and broken
For absolutely zero reason
It doesn't make sense
Nothing bad is even happening
But I feel shattered
I spent a year feeling so. hollow.
So f!cking hollow
I felt like I couldn't breathe
Like I wasn't alive
I spent entire days
Not speaking
I still miss the cuts sometimes, honestly
I like my scars
Which sounds terrible
But I trace them with my fingernails absentmindedly some days
During the darker nights
It comforts me
Because even though I’m not going to cut myself ever again
I can jolt myself into remembering the pain
And it is a form of relief in itself
I don’t know
Not something I can explain
Is that depression?
Probably not though, I feel bad suggesting it in front of people who actually for sure have depression when I haven't been analyzed
But still, it's not impossible I guess

I spent 5 years
From grade 5 through to grade 9
Which is pretty **** young
Feeling fat
Hating my body
Hating myself
I can see my ribs but I still feel fat
It’s okay I can fix that
Eating a little less
Skip a meal
Just skip lunch
Just eat a tiny breakfast, no lunch
No breakfast, no lunch but it’s okay because I have a good dinner
I think I’m losing weight
Is it bad that I’m in grade 5 and thinking like this?
This is great
I think it’s working
I’m in grade 6 now
Maybe I won’t be worthless if I become skinny
I can still see my ribs
I could from the beginning
But I still feel fat
Okay, less dinner now
Hide it well
Let’s switch
No lunch, a little dinner and a bit of breakfast
Just enough to stay alive
Although how much to I really want to stay alive?
Fat.
Look at my legs
Look at their legs
My thighs God I hate my thighs
Eat less
Eat less and less
Until I’m basically surviving on snacks and just the beginnings of each meal
Just enough to take a few bites before they leave the room for a minute
Just long enough for me to throw away my food
But I don’t think I’m losing weight
I will never be enough
7th grade
Just a little less
Don’t tell any of them
Losing pounds
Check my reflection
I still feel fat
I try to be less so I can feel like I’m more
But does the number on the scale even matter anymore?
I’m promising and promising I ate before I came
But these pretty little lies are driving even me insane
And they can’t see through my smile they can’t figure it out
I’m slowly killing myself
From the inside out
Pretty soon, “I don’t feel well” is my favorite phrase and an everyday thing
A justification for my small portions that I don’t finish
It’s true though
I don’t feel well
I feel worthless.
It continues into 8th and 9th grade
Worse and worse
Looking up the calories of different food
Surviving on water and tea
Just enough food to stay alive
Though I really don’t care that much about my own survival, really
Is that anorexia nervosa?
I doubt it
But it’s a possibility I guess

I look in the mirror
And I feel so f!cking ugly
I literally cannot find ONE thing I like about myself
I cannot leave the house without makeup
Because I am SO ashamed of my own face
I genuinely feel bad for the people who have to see my face
I cry sometimes, because I look in the mirror and see my own worthless hideousness
I remember that sleepover I was invited to with the popular girls and I wondered why
When I got locked in a closet, got soap sprayed in my mouth and locked outside in the freezing cold snow without pants on when I was just trying to change into my night clothes
That’s when I knew I had been invited just so they could torment me
I don’t like being the entertainment for the party
I tried to just go to sleep because if I called home I would look like a coward
And my mother who NEVER let me go to sleepovers would get to say “I told you so”
And when they thought I was asleep
But I wasn’t
I listened to them talk for a full hour
My eyes on the clock
My ears on their conversation
“Is she asleep”?
I didn’t know they were talking about me until I heard them mention my name
When they talked for a full f!cking hour
In detail
About why I was ugly
On what levels I was ugly
The degree of my ugliness
I didn’t cry
I didn’t sit up and tell them I could hear them
It would be too humiliating
I listened
And I know they are right
But now it’s getting bad
My face doesn’t even look human to me anymore
It looks like some sort of beastly troll’s face
It looks f!cking hideous
My mother is worried about me
Because I can’t even look myself in the mirror when I have no makeup on
Because I Freak. Out when it is suggested that I might have to be in public without hiding my ugly face in makeup
It literally affects my ability to function properly in everyday life.
The thing is, those girls said it
And they ALL agreed
So if I REALLY had dysmorphia
Then it would all be in my mind
And if they all agreed I was hideous
Then I must be
So how can it be imagined?
I don’t know
Anyway
My point is
I suppose
MAYBE
It is possible
I have dysmorphia

But
Depression
Anorexia Nervosa
Dysmorphia

Those possible diseases of the mind
I
Have multiple
Psychological issues

BUT OCD IS NOT F!CKING ONE OF THEM

How dare he suggest such a thing
Just because I
“Always seem to be working towards something”
Excuse me for not getting drunk and high and naked
Putting off work
Not caring about anything
It’s not OCD though
It’s just called going somewhere in life
Because I may as well
Since in my mind
I’m hopelessly lost

With a face and voice like that you’d never guess
the girl was five foot ten
she walks in and towers above the image
you expected
a girl pushing five feet, dainty, even whimsical
but surely petite
she’s far from petite

This girl sympathizes with transgender bodies
yet envies those who succeed
Hormones and knives can fix gods mistake
but nothing can fix me
so women will sit dreaming of dropping pounds
and she dreams of dropping feet
never complete

Psychs and shrinks digress this to be nothing more
than another disorder
Her views on herself are simply brushed off
as body dysmorphia
yet therapy nor pills shall shake her desire
to fix gods mistake
by freeing her soul of this giant hell hole
leaving it for someone else to take.

where am i?
how am I to write when
I am no different from
those gaseous ephemeral words
who lie prostrate upon
the pages of my dictionary
carved plainly into
those battlefields strewn across
the wartorn country
my heart the despotic dictator
whose primal drumming
carries no tune
and no rhythm
and throws of explosions
grenades that
black out the world for
a brief moment
until it careens back and
slams into me
disorientated

i should have been born twice
for how could i have
both my body and that
intangible inexplicable
something inside
it stirs at the molten core
of me
that chasm that forged
those graven images
that first gave way to
a pictographic language
and offered me
a voice
to explain that immutable
all powerful
urge
lust
to throw myself on that
red button and
detonate
burst into a million pieces
and finally relieve that
nauseating pressure
of adipose smushed between
holy bone and
saintly skin
interloping in that space
and separating two lovers

barriers create madness

walls box me in
and yet i grow
an expanding balloon girl
macy’s day parade and
candy littered streets
and razor sharp edges
to steel walls pressing harder
against me than
my supple skin could
ever possibly press
back

i can’t breathe

there is no room
for my lungs to expand
and feel the
fresh sun filled meadow
of crystal air
delivering oxygen to
starved alveoli
and i can’t find your chest
to guide me
in impossible respiration

i’m suffocating in my own skin
from no outside force
but my body itself
turns inward and
shouts its dominance at my
cowering self
sniveling in the corner
of my dusty half used heart
where no blade could possible
land a blow deep enough
to silence the torment and
particular personal poison
a torture to course through
every part of me
activating every single neuron
and making me
hyperaware of my
shame and noxious
venomous corpulence
a reality i
never wanted you to see
but is written plainly
in fiery script across my forehead
and in every fold of fat.

my body, the hand grenade
ugly crawls inside, makes a nest.
an animal chained in a cage,
my insect in a jar.

i spit out my ugly. it wasn't supposed to be this way.

life is a simple arrangement
of numbers and measures.
the bathroom mirror under florescent lights
is my sacred altar.
never mind that nothing else is sacred.

my broken body, the hungry child
i give her food, i take it away. i make her cry.
i bleed for her.

she swallows my ache and comes back for more.

My hipbones rock me on the wooden floor 
Protruding from my frame 
Skin bruises from simply laying on my stomach
Yet I am not skinny
 red lines mark where the folds of my stomach have been, 
my arm like wings 
my thighs hugging each other tightly
 stretching occasionally my eye catches the reflection of a stick like woman I can't recognize in the dark window until I realize she is me 
as that settles in my true details fill in 
morphing the strange woman into the ugly that is me. 
Striving to become the strange woman that once was 
I shove a finger down my throat

Ever since the warm weather began,
I started getting really bad anxiety about my body
The fear of wearing a bathing suit has always been very real, for me
Even when I barely weighed 100 pounds,
I thought I was fat
I thought my body was disgusting
So now that I've gained a little weight,
I was terrified to put my bathing suit on
But you know what?
I did
And I don't look that bad
Yes, I need to get back in better shape for my health
and for my own sake
But I don't look like the gelatinous blob
I thought I would
As a woman, I've been conditioned to believe since childhood,
that if I don't have a tiny, flat stomach,
I'm not beautiful
That I have to be a size 2,
or guys won't be attracted to me
That if I don't keep my body in perfect shape all the time,
I'm lazy and unhealthy
I'm trying to learn how to love my body
no matter what it looks like
Because looks fade,
and I won't be 26 forever
But I'll always be me,
and I'll always be worth loving

Mirrors are all traitors
As in them I can see
Just what a monster I am;
That I will always be.
I have lumps and and spots
That make me unloveable.
And everything I eat is
Another bite of trouble.

Why can’t I ever look
Like the models in the book?
Why is it that I
Can’t look myself in the eye?
No one will look longingly
At the gorgon I turned out to be.

I don’t watch cartoons
Because what I see is me
What did I do to deserve
To become so **** ugly?
Did I cross the path of a cat
That was an omen meant to warn
And I ignored it so now
I inherited this awful form?

Why can’t I be the kind
With a beautifully formed behind?
I wish it was my history
To stimulate evil jealousy.

I want to look like a dream,
But instead I must surrender
A fragile wish, as it seems
An unfilled hope altogether.
Some friends are sweet to me
They say I look fine to them,
But I know what I can see
And I deserve no diadem.

I want to breathe in so deeply
My lungs inflate
Break their cage
And let my heart
Along with my feelings, thoughts, fear, and numbness
Fly out
So I hold my breath
And I almost get there

It’s mysterious the way the mind works
How your self worth can just
Wither away
And how your will just falters

How looking in the mirror
Can become a thing of fear
And you pick out each
Little flaw, each imperfection
When you can’t see your ribs
- You can never see your ribs -

How helping yourself
Turns into guilt
And how everyone stares
And picks you apart
And judges

But that is not you
It is your mind
Pulling away at you
Blurring the truth
As it rots

Yesterday I felt good about myself
I thought I looked good in that dress
Today I saw a video of me
And my self esteem went down, I'm down on my knee
I'm working so hard to maintain,
A good physic my self to entertain
My self to be proud of
My self to not be worn off
I count calories every day
A limit I set to always obey
A workout regim to never look pass
Only walking, not taking the bus
I find my legs so thick why?
I find my arms so flabby, No I deny
I'm gonna try to push some more forward
To not give up on this trip, only onward

When I look in the mirror in the morning,
I feel fine.
I brush my hair.
I am fine.
I brush my teeth,
And I am fine.

Then I notice how my teeth aren’t as white as they could be.
But I'm still fine.

Then I put on my clothes and I notice how I spill over the sides.
But I am fine.
Then I notice how my hips jut out
And my jeans are never long enough in the ankles.

Then I spend ten minutes thinking of changing my jeans,
Because this shirt is too tight
But I opt for a hoodie instead.
Then I am lost in the hoodie.
I feel like a blob of fabric.
And then just a blob.

I get in my car and look in the mirror to adjust
And notice how dark under my eyes are.
When I’m pretty sure they weren’t that dark earlier.

As I drive to school, I notice my hands on the steering wheel
And ponder how they can be both fat and scraggly at the same time.

I get to school and notice people staring at me at the red lights
While I begin to cross the road.

I pass windows and with each one,
I notice my thighs grow larger with each step.
I notice how wide I am when I pass other girls
Then I think about my ankles and I swear I can feel them swell.

By the time it is twelve o’clock,
I have convinced myself that I am a
Bulging,
Suffocating,
Beast
Who tramples everyone in the room.
And the Earth is suddenly too small for someone as big as I am.

I'd shatter the mirror,
if I knew it would release your gaze.
The lock keeps your brain racing relentless
as your eyes hold the whip
and mascara, like an addict
Fortifying the belief that the real you
Isn't beautiful enough

Over the years I would take pictures
of myself on facebook but rarely with a smile,
not even to look for attention and any love from anyone
the reality was I have always hated how I looked,
obsessing over my weight
thinking if I looked skinnier
I would look great.
A  few times in my life I had to deal with
this inner battle head on
and it did win me a few times
I at certain points in my life
rejected eating and enjoying my food;
all the fat comments were  
so vile and rude;
shouting your a fat loser.  
I had a period a year go of self defeat;
the minor eating issue was hard to beat.  
I would get triggered by it  
if anyone mentioned anything relating to my weight;  
the echo's of the rude peoples voices
would stand out in my mind
keep repeating the rude comments
your a fat loser;  
Even when people in my family
were saying I looked fine
and were more concerned about me.  
I now say to family or friends
please do not keep mentioning
about my weight and just talk
about another topic there are
lots out there talking about my weight
only magnifies the obsession
and on the very issues I was constantly
trying to fight inside.
I have now accepted them and dealt
with the inner pain
and battle in my own head;
to accept and love my body image more,
learn to be happier and eat more again
love myself ignore the horrible
cruel comments that have always
stood out in my mind.  
The comments and thoughts
are always going to be there
but I shouldn't care so much about them
and not let them control my life anymore.
The rude people in the street
might have won the battle
with me for a short while
but they haven't won the war.  
I chose now to eat and be more healthy
and love myself again
and that is the final score.

Search inside yourself for love,
It has to start somewhere,
You have to love yourself before,
Others even start to care.

I learned the hard way,
I suffered alone,
Body Dysmorphia,
As it is better known.

I went insane first of course,
I couldn't look at myself,
I hated everything i was,
At risk of being left on the shelf.

People would say,
Surely it's not that bad,
But what do they know,
I was way past sad.

I decided to take it,
One step at a time,
I decided to change,
I started the climb.

Out of the dark,
No longer alone,
Working through my fears,
With my husband at home.

I want to know what people see,
I'll never see myself clearly.
My brain changes and contorts my body,
I'll
**** in my stomach till I can't breathe,
Nothing but high waisted skinny jeans,
No tight shirts, dresses, or bikinis.

I'm
too wide in the waist
too broad in the shoulders
too chubby in the fingers
too full in the cheeks

And
I'll never see what people see
I'll never see what makes me, me.

I haven’t weighed myself in weeks. I have this incessant itch inside of me longing to know what numbers I ring up to be. But everyday I hear another gnawing voice say,
“You are not a number, you are a person. A number does not define you. What defines you is your kindness, your efforts, the way you live your life.”

But what happens when the way I’ve been living my life for the past year and a half has been nothing BUT numbers and scales and nutrition labels and dysmorphia. What happens when my efforts have only been reduced to reducing myself? What happens when kindness overflows towards others, but I cannot even look in the mirror and say “I love you.” What happens when you are completely consumed by something that refuses to let you consume?
-Does the tunnel end soon?

I don’t know if I’m really losing weight
Or if my self image has just become
Even more distorted
Collarbones
Ribs
More pronounced
Stick out  
Thighs
Arms
Shrink
But is it all in my head?
Do I just perceive myself as smaller?
trying so hard
Not to take up space
I could live under my bedroom floorboards
And still have room
For you?

My physical form dulls my light
and at this point, mostly at night
existing isn't normal.

Break down the mirror, and break me down
brains in my hair and teeth at my wrists,
she said fourteen caps of alprazolam gave her all she needed
she needs a new world, a new earth, a new ruler, that's what she needed-
I told you it wasn't meant to be this way, i was meant to be the prettiest
but girls with thickened veins and thickened wrists are destined for the bridge edge
My silver smiler body double told me to cut out the poison in my veins
and guess what I did it I did it I did it again
tell them your name, dysmorphia, tell them all what you think of me -
start the car and run me over, honey.

You know why I'm obsessed with makeup?
You know why I literally BREAK. DOWN. when I see myself in the mirror on one of those REALLY ugly days that I have?
You know why I seem f!cking vain and beauty obsessed and attention seeking because of how self-deprecating I am?
You know why I am currently crying...alone...on my bedroom floor...kind of pathetically?

Because now I'm a little bit scared
That maybe I DO have a disease of the mind
Maybe I DO have something in my head that isn't right
It just seems so impossible
Because I mean
I look in the mirror
And all I see is this hideous shameful beastly girl
So ugly
In fact, I genuinely feel terrible for the people who have to look at me
and I don't know why
I just don't see how anybody could ever possibly think that I am pretty
And for some reasons I'm crying right now
And I feel really alone
But no no no
There is no way I really have dysmorphia
Is there?

I feel embarrassed
Like I come across shallow
And stupid
And makeup obsessed
Because I can't ever see myself as pretty
NOT EVEN ONCE
not even decent
Not even reasonable
I just. see. UGLY.
and ashamed of my face,
And ashamed of my obsession
With cosmetics
Because it is like the only medicine they made
To fix this affliction
Makeup can make up for how ugly I am
maybe it can fix me
maybe I won't hate myself anymore
but it never does
and I hate crying alone!

skipping back and forth
the stages of grieving
but my body is bottomless —
endless where it hurts the worst.
it continues to grow
like a skin abnormality
over which i trip, head first i tumble down
these words in repetition
their despair, in repetition
in ever so artless ways.

too many indefinite things
gone too visceral
gone too deep these skin layers —
there is an (over)production of them,
to make room for
more. more. more. grief
popping here and there:
an obstacle course.
a grafted stem. a blunder.
what deformities might i uncover
as i dredge myself clean,
as i mow over me?

but my body is bottomless,
in perpetual, grave disquiet —
endless where it feels the worst.

Breathing in your smoke is like heaven to me,
Clearing out my lungs of such anxiety.
Your crutch and your dependence,
An endearing call of resplendence,
I think I loved you.

You make me nervous.
To the point where my brain stops,
And my mouth keeps running
Without any indication of where
the finish line is.
Where I begin to speak too fast and too quick
To know what I’ve said, and quite possibly
For you to even follow each word that
Pours out.

Yet Your heart was longing for another,
You and I were not meant to be lovers,
And We were not made for each other.
Oh, how sad times swept away the positive possibilities and the “what if?” worries,
I thought I could only hate the month of August,
It seems I now despise of July.

Stress melted away within my tears as I wept,
Sadness left the residue of itself on my pillow where I slept.
The sun bleeding through my curtains closed,
And yet my room turns an ill ridden shade of yellow.

I thought the outcome would leave me with a feeling of euphoria
Instead I look to my mirrored self, reflecting a state of body dysmorphia

I do not like the way that I look,
Comparing myself to her and your feelings I mistook.
Straighter teeth and an older complexion,
While I hide away, she only craves the attention.
You only knew her for a day and you still went away,
With her on holiday to a place so far, I can’t stay
In this state of mind any longer.

Seeing her be the lighter to your cigarette;
The founding letters to the jumbled spaces in your alphabet.
I see I am only the ash that falls to the ground,
I am not within those letters which you finally found.

A person like you should never have to go through what you have
No one deserves it, but especially someone like you.

I talked to you for 15 minutes and by the 8th minute I had tears rolling down my cheeks and my heart pulsated so sharply I thought I could see it through my shirt

God, why.
Mom. Cancer. Rehab. Chain. *******. Smoker.
Depression. Anxiety. Body dysmorphia. God, I am so sorry.  

All the cliches in the entire world could not amount to the things I wish I could say to you, and one day make you believe.
All the times you saved me from my worst self, only to realize that while you had saved me, it was your own self that was delving deeper and deeper into its own defeat.
God.
Every time you would come up and give me a hug even when I barely knew you.
When I had no idea what you would mean to me, and how much your life would impact mine.
I am so sorry.
Sorry that your parent's were **** to you. That you didn't get the family you deserve, but made yourself such a strong, completely marvelous person.
I'm not romanticising any of the things you went through because I would never shed a good light on things that caused you so much suffering.
No, that's not it at all.
All the stories you told me tonight seemed too unbearable to be real.
But those stories are your harsh realities and I would trade everything I owned, all the money in my bank account, for you to stop what you do to yourself and the undo the numbness you've trained yourself to feel
you are NOT sad personified
you are NOT just *** appeal and sweet heartbreaker
you even know that my heart breaks, literally I can feel it, when you tell me, show me, paint ******* pictures for me of all the things you've dragged yourself through
I can't pick your feet up and carry you through, though.
God, how I wish I could.
You have to do it on your own, I know you can.
But I just ******* hope you'll follow through in your terrifying, mystifyingly horrible promise of, "Maybe I'll stick around until then"
.
.
.

he claims to just be blatantly honest.
but he calls me lovely.
and compliments me.
and listens wholly.
and has extreme dysmorphia towards my weight.
and reads my poetry.
and compliments it.
and treats me as if I possess some sort of innate value.
and makes me feel secure.
---
was he lying about being honest?
or am I lying to myself about my value?

When I was a little girl I loved going to the fair.
seeing the clowns
rides
and carnies.
but my favorite thing to see at the fair is the fun house
Remember those?
Where mirrors flooded the walls bending towards you
distorting the image you saw to one of absurd portions
Nose swelling larger
legs shrinking
hips inflating.
I loved seeing the shapes my body could take.
...I haven't been to a fun house in years.
And even if I went I know the mirrors would look like those that hang in my room.
Body dysmorphia is it's own fun house
one full of insecurities and self-hate.
It makes regular mirrors bend my perception of reality.
Makes my stomach bloat
thighs inflate
cheeks widen
eyes shrink
My mind has turned into a trapeze act
And I don't know if i want it to stop.

I am currently in one of those moods where everyone who is happy and in love, or has any kind of adorable love-life I really would like to light on fire.

Dear beautiful couples, please get your sickeningly cute relationship out of my sight before I *****! Can't you see I'm busy being bitter and lonely and spiteful?!
Sincerely,
The girl in the corner with the chocolate and the ice cream crying bitterly and insanely yelling crazy (slightly terrifying) things at random happy couples passing by.

I am so jealous of some girls it is actually pathetic and I know that jealousy makes me a pretty bad and petty person, but I think it would actually make me a worse person if I weren't honest and denied being jealous of them. I think that jealousy is just a different kind of pain that you are not allowed to feel because society stifles it, and that is not fair. Anyone else agree with this? Idk, maybe I'm the only one. I just think that as long as you are not "getting revenge" or "acting on your jealousy" or whatever it is perfectly normal to feel jealous and it should not be seen as agony, not a negative feeling that makes you a bad person if you feel it.

There is this guy and even though I don't really like him anymore, he and I are still chatting a little and I see his ****** exgirlfriend every fcking day and I hate her. Anyway, I just feel like I can never be like her and I feel this sense of competition between us everytime I see her because the guy I was talking about dropped me for her when he thought he had a chance to get back together with her and I hate being the "Plan B" and I hate him and I hate her and I hate feeling this much hatred and I hate myself for not being as badass as her, as pretty as her, as cool as her, having an original taste in music that is more similar to his as her, I hate myself for caring this much, I hate myself for being so much less interesting than her, and I just really feel worthless and like I am nothing compared to her. Also she is popular. I apologize if this offends anyone but since I had bad experiences with the popular crowd a while back (a lot of stuff I guess some people might call bullying but I don't want to sound like I'm victimizing myself), I just loathe the entire "culture" and society of "popular" people everywhere. I recognize that is an extremely biased, discriminatory, offensive, narrow-minded and pathetic, generalizing point of view, I just have really scarring experiences with them and I don't even care anymore. Anyway, she is extremely well liked by everyone and she is dismissive of poetry and the art of writing which offends me and she is just really... physically beautiful. Do you have any idea what I would give to be pretty like that? I can't compete. I may as well give up. Sorry for the rant this was a lot longer than I actually realized while writing it, I just needed to get this out I'm sorry.

It is kind of getting worse and I am starting to wonder if maybe I should get tested for dysmorphia. Just to ease my mind about the matter... but I'm scared to find out. If it is a no, then I'm glad I don't have a mental disorder but that means I really am a hideous beast and I really need to get some kind of operation or something to fix my ugly face, then if it is a yes, I have a mental disorder and I really don't want to deal with a disease of the mind because it hurts a lot to hate yourself this much.

I have too much work to do and too little time I'm panicking there is no way I am going to be done.

I have no social life.

I want chocolate.

I need to stop trying to resolve things with chocolate.

I'm in one of those moods where I am sad. I don't know why, I just am. How is that even possible?

I am not good at dealing with loneliness.

There must be a way to feel like you are enough for yourself. I haven't found it yet.

Listen:

You cannot give back what you stole from yourself. You can’t feed your body the things you denied it while it was quivering beneath the whip of your merciless, perfectionist dysmorphia, or erase the scars you’ve carved into it, or stroke it tenderly all those times you wished you could jump out of your flesh and become somebody else—a goddess-girl, a radiant impossibility, angelic fire with taut skin over crystal cheekbones and a torso so trim it could snap in a storm.

But you can start again. You can make vows to yourself that you will spend the rest of your life fulfilling, because to hell with comparison. To hell with the wars waged on magazine racks. To hell with GET SKINNY IN 3 WEEKS and HOW TO TIGHTEN YOUR ABS and 10 TIPS THAT WILL MAKE HIM WANT YOU. To hell with the mythology of thin—this vile word, this grotesque title, this dismissal of your vibrant heart and humming brain, this slaughtering of your entirety. To hell with the numbers that made you ill. To hell with calories/ scales/ grams/ portions, the formulas that stabbed you and wrecked you and violated you in ways so wicked you still cannot breathe them aloud. To hell with it all.

All this time you have been confused by yourself, thinking it ugly, despicable, criminal. All your life you have suppressed the sunburst inside you. Now, it’s time to release the latch. Time to push the lid open. Time to make whatever noise you were never bold enough to make, because none of it matters, you know? Size and measurement and all that soul-splitting *******. You are not bone or blood or cell; you are dizzy blue light and skipped heartbeats, the intersection of potassium and sodium, that chemical eruption of color, that running down unnamed streets amid stars and heavy breathing, that feeling of pushing through bodies of strangers to where there is the sweet negative space in the eye of it all, waiting for you to pull your hair off your face and dance like you are waterfall upon waterfall come to life.

You are not an equation. You are not pounds and inches. You are breath and sight and noise and movement and growth, and you cannot squander another pounding of your sweet, open-palm heart loathing your body for the misdeed of not being something else. The extra flesh protecting your vital organs is irrelevant when all the world is an electrical impulse roaring its beauty for you. The precise width of your hips is immaterial here in this place where sleepless people are kissing and comets are screaming through the atmosphere like fallen gods and tomorrow is unfurling in great, glittering swaths of potential.

Teetering on something significant,
but the words haven't been molded;
just some idea that was formed
in the attic of an old comic book store
when I was inspired by the artwork
of that Liefeld guy who inks dysmorphia.
-
The definition of ******* seems to be something
that fits like a drunken tattoo in a hard to see area.
You need a couple mirrors, your arms start to ache
and you never really do get a good look at it.
Now you have to explain to casual intimate partners
that you think it's the first Megazord, not a little devil.
-
I recently did a math problem that took up an entire page;
it was my first time doing something like that.
The pacing of math classes gives me an anxiety like I can't believe.
The word prerequisite give me an anxiety like I can't believe.
Sweaty, cold, fetal, this can't really be a normal reaction, right?
I think Montessori might have messed with my wiring.
-
I can hear my mom shuffling about on her walker.
I think she must be feeding a cat, or cleaning up puke;
the spectrum of caring.
Holly is in heat and howling.
I can't find my Proventil, it tastes so much better than the other brands.
I think I might just have some fruity pebbles.