Good Days

I've been good, I tell myself.
90 calories today.
200 yesterday.
190 the day before.


My skirt no longer strangles me, no longer leaves red bruises on my flesh. Now it hangs loose and free.


So why is the girl in the mirror getting more and more repulsive each day?

Dear Love

ring my neck with silver chains
let no sound be breathed in
burn my fingers one by one
'till i am eaten thin
sing to me now as i sleep
and hold me when i wake
never release my shackles
in fear that i may break

Liquid Misery

one sip, a thousand reasons
that no one's ever gonna ask
a million tears, one year
a hundred heartaches, one glass
too many drinks
and still way too much pain
one sip turns into much more
drinking the world away


I wrote that, drunk on laxatives and red wine, shaking from the combination. Purged the red wine, and the former purged themselves, until I was a dehydrated mess of emptiness. Some may cringe away, as if they could block it out. Block out the truth. But, at the same time, perhaps some will look away only because they see a reflection of themselves in these words.


It isn't glamorous. No one ever promised it would be. You hear anorexia, or addict, or whatever society-stricken label you've been assigned... you see a beautifully skinny girl. You never see the nights cried, wrapping into herself from the pain. No one ever thinks of the trembling hands and the bruises on her back from hours of sit-ups. Or the blood painting the rim, laughing back up at you. No one ever really sees the rejected plates, the nightmares lived, the punishments and unforgivements. 


But they're there. They're always there. 


The road to perfection is pathed with water and self-loathing. It's a well worn road. For me, I can't turn around and go back. I'm chained here, and the key is only at the end. So I walk.


Step after famished step, I walk.

Fragile

When I was little, they used to tell us we could do anything. Be anything. They had us write down what we wanted to be when we grew up. Not a single one of us wrote down 'anorexic,' 'self-conscious,' 'depressed.' No one ever thought to put down 'addict,' 'alone,' or 'lost.' No one wanted this to happen.


I woke up, it was 2am, I couldn't sleep again. The world was dream-like, shrouded by a mist. As if I was already gone, looking back at a memory of the living. The night-thoughts came. The whys, the hows, the what-ifs and what-nows. The when-did-this-happens and why-to-mes. 

It's as if one moment we're fine, or as close to it as we'll ever be. And the next, we can't even quite recognize the face in the mirror crying back at us. But in reality, it happens slowly. Second by second, thought by thought, trigger by trigger. It happens slowly, until it's too late to be reversed.


Then one day you wake up and ask why. Why, tell me, does every sharp object entice me to open myself? Why do I glare at every piece of food, as if I can intimidate away the calories. Where did all these scars and dreams come from? Have I fallen asleep, and unknowingly wandered to a different depth of hell?

We're all fragile flames, hovering in a vast darkness that is life. I don't know how, or when, or why, but somehow a light breeze drifted across my atmosphere, and extinguished me. Somehow I became what I swore I'd never become. 


No one asks us about the future anymore. Perhaps they know we're too far gone to be saved.

Swinging By A Thread

There's a space between her legs, that wasn't there before... so thin, so small, just enough for a thin ray of light to shine through. But it's what kept her going, what gave her the will to take another breath. A broken flower, thriving on that ray of light, however small and seemingly insignificant. To her, it was everything.

DAY2, 3, and a fail

I thought I was doing great. It was 6:00 on day three, and I hadn't eaten a single thing. Fasting seemed beautiful. But then my dad called. "Make sure you eat dinner tonight," he repeated for the third time. They were on to me. 


I cooked myself 62 calories of spinach pasta, ate it... a little bit of oatmeal... and I was bad. I didn't say no to the ghram cracker cake that they had especially cooked for me. Or the wine. In the end, I must've had at least 700 calories. Which was my entire allowance for the three days, two of which I'd spent fasting. 


At least I played hard-core basketball for a couple hours. That should even the score.


Still...What a waste.


Anyway, today is my 400 calorie allowance day. Wish me luck. Or don't.

Early Morning Whispers

I've never been a hateful person. Not quite. But some things get to me, like the girls who wonder why people haven't noticed they have a problem. Or wonder why no one cares. I hate that they haven't realized the truth; that no one cares, no one ever has or ever will. That life owes us nothing but death.


Maybe I'm just jealous. Jealous that they believe in something, jealous that they hope one day to be saved. I don't have that. I know that the path I'm on will most definitely not lead to my retribution. 


No one heard me screaming. No one saw the blood. No one noticed my barely-touched plate. Why should they, after all? I was too lost, and I've never wanted to be found. 

DAYONE: Proof

Well, I did it. Not a single, evil, war-provoking calorie slipped past my chapsticked lips. The funny thing is I'm not even hungry. I mean sure, I have that weird feeling in my stomach and base of my throat. But that's not hunger. That is, perhaps, mild discomfort. You have no idea how fresh it feels to be able to write that. To write that I have eaten nothing. To prove that I am currently pure.

I think I may owe it all to green tea. Seriously. It keeps metabolism working and may even have curbed my appetite. I love the horrible taste, too. I don't even consider binging any more. It's just, when I know something won't happen, I see no point in imagining or contemplating it. 

I saw a picture where a girl lost 20 pounds in three months. 1 1/2 pounds  per week. Completely attainable. All I can see now when I close my eyes in me, purged of my impurities. Thriving off the air around me. Tomorrow I won't have to eat anything because I'm staying after for soccer. And screw that whole 'I'm hungry so I'll eat' thing. Come on. Where'd that ever get anyone?

"How much will you do?" "One more than my body tells me I can't." -some inspiring movie

Trigger Warning

For some reason it seems that my 'problems' and my experiences are hopelessly intertwined. I don't think one could be without the other. Or maybe that's just victim-mentality.
My most recent trigger has been the rapes. I know it happened almost exactly a month ago, on Christmas morning... But it still affects me. Maybe because he was 13 years older than me. Maybe because it was so violent. Maybe because the trial has yet to be sealed.
Control. We all crave what has been taken from us. That night, despite how I fought, I lost control. It wasn't the first time I'd been raped; and sexual assault is nothing new to me. Yet somehow the past seems to be living, as if it is a ghost walking beside me through my life.
And with each nightmare, I grow more numb. Detached. Until the only thing I can feel is hunger and the sharp edge of a blade. Until the only thing I can hear is Ana, whispering frighteningly tangible poisons in my mind. She's all I have left.

All I Ever Wanted

was to be skinny. I never have been. It's not so much to want, really. Control. I've never had that either. I've spent my whole life wanting those things, wanting, trying even, but never achieving. Never winning. Always a failure. 


I'm tired of looking in the mirror and hating what I see. I'm tired of being fat. There's nothing left to do but try harder, to finally reach my dream. To step on the scale, and see the numbers I've only fantasized about. Then, perhaps, I will know love. Then, perhaps, I will know what it is to be happy.