the number

I looked at the number like it was all that fucking mattered,

My collar bones were starting to show, it was worth being battered.

The scale became my oxygen and it was an overload of choking sadness,

The calorie tracker app drove my mind into sudden madness.

My parents just say the wrong thing about what I had ate,

And even now despite recovering I still had taken the damn bait.

I cannot help but gasp and cry when I look within the mirror,

My body looks different everyday as it looks clearer.

I'm tired of opening up the fridge to only see food as a number,

I'm tired of searching for new waist trainers to wear instead of slumber.

I'm tired of one day being happy the next self loathing and so upset,

I'm tired of having my body ideals never met.

I've been praised about my physic for so many years,

But why can I not see it? Is it masked behind my eating fears?

I broke my relationship with meals so many times,

I've been crying so hard while writing these stupid rhymes. 

When I peer at the looking glass all I envision is a number,

I look bulkier and bulkier, almost like a tree trunk in lumber.

Purging, over working, starving, diets, tea; I have done it all,

I have brushed myself off so many times only to just fall,

I go to school to make others laugh  and love their life,

But why can't I do the same? Using a sharpie to dot my physic goals before a knife.

I still feel fat and I still want to give up,

I'm tired of stressing the grams and calories in my cup.

I just wish to be freed from this bitter cage of eating disaster,

I just want to reach my fitness goals and be known as a health master.

But body dysmorphia has stabbed me in my back,

Now my confidence is again what I lack.

I see my toned muscles shrink and my skin getting pale,

I see the calorie tracker on my phone and the number on the scale.