eat

i’m fat
and i have an eating disorder
not just one
but two.
but of course you didn’t suspect that,
cause my thighs aren’t the size of baseball bats
and my bones aren’t protruding through my dry, scaly, torn skin
looking like a perfect women,

i’m dying to be thin.

i’m a fat girl with a skinny “diet”
300 calories a day is too much for me,
and i can promise that every single one of you in this room have not seen me eat.
many of you don’t know what it’s like, eating past your daily calorie limit
and punishing yourself
by curling up to the toilet
for the next hour and passing out there cause you purged too much
you’re dizzy from all the strain
and your esophagus is screaming in pain,
but you can’t pass out until you measure
your vomit, i promise you
i’m not insane.

you know this one time i didn’t eat for 9 days straight.
0 calories everyday for over a week.
many people would be ashamed,
they’d eat food in an instant
but it was one of my biggest achievements,
it was liberating,
i felt weightless,
i felt beautiful,
i felt in control.
the feeling of starving, the feeling of an empty stomach,
is euphoric.
the thought of being 86lbs,
pumped my adrenaline,
i was so close, yet so far away.

sadly, i was forced to eat
when i passed out on my bedroom floor and my family found me
and rushed me to the hospital doors
they didn’t know what for
until they saw all the disgusting, rotting piles of food in my room that i told them i was going to eat.
and the bottle of laxatives and diet pills almost empty that were next to my feet.
and the vomit bag hidden under my bed, that was rancid,
with a smell that is far from discrete.

that night i was diagnosed,
anorexia and bulimia,
they didn’t want me to go home.
but i wanted to,
i wanted to go home and work off
the 1,500 calorie drip
they shoved down my nose
to give me all the nutrients i was missing
i wanted to go home and
do sit-ups until my spine was bruised,
run until my breathing was so tight
it felt my neck was caught in a noose.

i don’t care about my health.
i don’t care if i was alive,
i just wanted to make sure
the next morning i had a smaller
measure on my thigh.
i didn’t need the hospital,
i wasn’t thin enough
the equation goes
if you’re thin and develop an eating disorder you go into the hospital,
but if you’re not thin and develop an eating disorder,
you’re a success story,
i wanted to be that success story,
let me be that success story.

but the doctors and family didn’t respect my wishes,
because that’s all part of the disorders is not wanting to get better until you’re perfect.
but there is no perfect,
so i’d never stop.

but i felt as if nothing was wrong with me,
family and girls that never talked to me would come up and congratulate me,
they would ask how i did it,
asked my secrets,
little did they know i spend most of the night,
with my pointer finger and middle finger down my throat,
playing Russian roulette with my gag reflex.

i was thrown into a hospital,
near the end of my freshman year
there everyday for 2 and a half months,
at least in school you get privacy when you take a shit,
i had to leave the stall door open
just in case i snuck in laxatives.
i remember the room i was in,
where we’d talk about our feelings after meal time,
where we had to face our fear foods,
i never felt so venerable.
it made me not want to be alive

everyone sees me as a fearless person,
but the one thing that does terrify me,
is something everyone can do numerous times a day,
eat.
i can eat,
but i can’t promise it won’t stay in me long,
i have 45 minutes to get it out of me until it’s useless to try.
that’s when i feel guilty and i start to cry.
because if i don’t purge now,
i won’t be skinny enough for that one guy,

no one really knows what i feel inside,
now that i’m out of the hospital,
i don’t want to die,
but i still do feel worthless,
and i still feel fat,
i still get pissed when i realized i gained that
50lbs back
people still ask me,
“why aren’t you eating?”
and i still say the same excuses as before,
i still eat with a closed door,
everyone thinks i’m so much better,
but they shouldn’t be so sure.
eating to me is like so kind of chore.

some nights i lay in my bed,
looking at thinspo,
all the beautiful girls
i desire to be,
that’s when i realize,
i will never be free.
ana and mia
have taken over me,

please tell me what it’s like to be free.
i just dream to one day not feel guilty when i eat.
but i’m afraid this is one thing i just can’t beat.
if you’re not recovering, you’re dying.
and through all the endless night of crying,
because of the pain of an empty stomach
screaming,
feed me!
i think it’s time i actually start trying.
cause
wanting to die is not the same as wanting to come home,
and i’m still trying to remember that
although,
i love the thought of being thin,
i hate the feeling of vomit running down my chin.

everything gets better,
even if your not completely thin.
so fight the caloric calculator buried down beneath your skin,
everything is going to be alright,
just take a big deep breath in.