Eating Disorders
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Society killed the teenager.
But no one cared.
They tried to speak up,
But they were ensnared.
In society’s trap.
He was strong, but not strong enough.
He was too feminine, too skinny.
The day you told me I needed to "lose weight"
I was year four into self hate
Those words werent foreign but I never expected to hear them out loud
You looked so proud
but you always do
Recovery is the key,
to being healthy,
but I cannot seem to turn it.
What is the point of opening the door?
My illness questions what we are doing this for...
but I say there are future days,
Recovery is the key,
to being healthy,
but I cannot seem to turn it.
What is the point of opening the door?
My illness questions what we are doing this for...
but I say there are future days,
Choco pillow in my tummy
Choco pillow yummy yummy
Pillows make me big and strong
Pillows take away the wrong
Honey pillows pay the bills
I know I’m not good looking
You say my body shape doesn't matter
The flaws that I pick apart so carefully
Scared I’ll have a new one
momma
tell me i'm still perfect
tell me i'm still interesting
even though i'm all drugged up these days
can i still be your little angel
can i still be your little girl
please, momma,
I look at you and want so bad
To have you without shame
I want to be like them
But I see you and turn away
I look at them and I see the beauty
I look at me and see imperfection
January 31, 2023.What do I do, everything is getting bad again.Why can I never get better?Everyone gives up on me,Why can't someone just stay and listent to me?If no one wants to help me then I dont matter.
Society says
You’re not sick; you’re just fine
Society says that you don’t need help
That you don’t know pain
That you’ve never felt
The way it is to have to ask
Am I dying?
the inevitable question
arises again
and it cuts
just as deep
as it always does
the inevitable question
always asked by someone else
always painful
always innocent
I eat too much to die
and not enough to live
and I claim that I try
but I can’t say
how much effort I really give
my body is shutting down
but I’m past the point of feeling it
Consuming my days, and
Filling the nights
With a special blend of dread
It’s a debate in my head:
I want the day to be over
I want it to never end
I dread the days
They tried to tell me
The funniest thing
That what I’ve avoided
Will be my own doom
They whispered so loudly
The things I fear most
And the monster inside me
Uses my illness to boast.
The system is broken
You can’t change my mind
They don’t look for the right signs and warnings...
And it hurts but I can’t
And you won’t understand
But I guess that’s the price left to pay
The sky was falling
In the form
Of grey translucent drops.
The air was heavy
In my lungs
So my mind took me away.
I made a plan
I packed and ran
Every
ration the strawberries and only eat two
stare at flesh through reflection and watch how attractive you look as you hold your breath wishing it was true
awake from slumber at nine on the dot
The sweetness of the strawberries deeply contrast the longing I have for something that will be flushed down
down
down
down
Ideally that's what I would be
Bones
Just bones
Lonley sobbing pile of bones
Only kept alive by the occasional glance from the sun
I do not like sweets
They leave me nauseous
My palate sickeningly sugary
But your love is just as sweet
And worth the calories
I love your love
It leaves me full of adrenaline
The porcelain circle is leering at meFull of colorful shapes with facesThe shapes look like foodBut food can't talk.They tell me not to eat them
Thoughts run wild
Is this normal I’m still a child
It’s constant
It’s never ending
It’s utterly excruciating
Thoughts of suicide
Fill my mind
Should I stay
Dear Arfid
Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder
You have been in my body for 5 years now
I was in the 4th grade when you showed up at my place
i died for the first time when i was fourteen
sitting on a hotel room floor in the wake of a hurricane, my mind crumbled as the lightbulb flickered above my head
How did you overcome one of your fears, and what did you learn from the experience?
People can be insensitive
Judgement is inevitable
Caring too much is dangerous
Shadowing our lives as a grey cloud over us
Seeming as to want to rain
But threatening not to
Threatening to just sit over us and trap us in it's sick game of taunting anticipation
They are everywhere
I thought I had reached the end
I thought I finally meant it when I said “just one last time”
How stupid was I to believe
That there was ever such a thing as “one more time, one last thing”
this body im in,
i cant love it.
i see the hate,
what i hate,
what they hate.
im too fat.
i eat less and less.
i eat nothing.
i get sick.
im bones.
im dying they say.
there's a to-go cup in my hand
i run my fingernails down the side of the styrofoam,
feeling how it caves under my touch
my nails are weak and brittle, and recently, my touch doesn't do much
She used to be so happy
Her teachers said she was always talking.
Always smiling.
Then middle school rolled around.
She no longer liked herself
Judging by the full box of granola bars in the pantry, it’s getting bad again, and my mother can see it like an oncoming storm
The cereal swims in the bowl, innocently enough
It’s cold and sugary and terrifying
I struggle to take a breath
I watch it float, the minutes tick
Recovery can only be put off for so long
With a silver spoon
Hello again
From the abyss
The endless void of falling, crashing, burning
Once more
I’ve made the wrong choice
Took the blue pill, took the less traveled path
It took me down a long, hard road
Beauty; too tall, too short, too thin, too fat.
Beauty is not even made up of that.
A theology that says you must abide by the standards and the rules;
A theology that doesn’t think we are all jewels.
I remember
I remember when I could just eat
Eat because I was hungry
Eat because I just wanted to
Because that cookie just looked delicious
Taking a bite and feel happy
Yeah, I remember
I remember
I remember when I could just eat
Eat because I was hungry
Eat because I just wanted to
Because that cookie just looked delicious
Taking a bite and feel happy
Yeah, I remember
All it needs is a simple number
To trigger the pain
It awakes from its slumber
It takes over my brain
To trigger the pain
Telling me it's not a piece of cake
No it's not, it's life, it's time, it's a waste
Spending my time hearing them say
It's not a piece of cake
It's not a piece of cake
It's not a piece of cake
An apple a day to keep me healthy you say, Just make sure its organic, And have two a day. You only said one,
Back in December
I started getting sick
I went to the doctor
but I think there's something they missed
I loved food
eating that's all I used to do
I could eat all day and wouldn't be done
my whole life i’ve always been different than everyone else. i was always the fat kid the one that couldn’t eat anything. left out of activities. watching everyone else enjoy their food. all i could do is sit and watch. pretending i didn’t care. i
This is the starving youth,
our stomachs flat and bodies shivering
as Amercas Next Top Model plays on repeat,
beautiful, skinny, starving,
racing to see who can decay the fastest,
we are the empty youth,
To Whom it may concern,Everyday I try to look cheerer.To Whom it may concern,But I cannot look at myself in the mirror. To Whom it may concern,I am not pretty.To Whom it may concern,I really do not want pity. To Whom it may concern,Some people
Back, belly, thighs, wrists. Which path do I start with? I take my red tape and wrap my arm up. Then my legs, I’m about to throw up.
I used to have a friend.
She was the type of person that everyone warned you to avoid.
She was toxic and manipulitive, selfish and agressive,
though, I couldn't help but love her anyway.
My body survives to live another day
Slow struggles for breath
It fights through the pain
My body survives to live another day
Tears of great anger
Punishments for gains
As I walk down this street through memory lane
I see a shadow of a soul that was filled with pain
I see wings that are meant to fly
Misery in her eyes
A raw sick poison that is her life
Disease, but of the mind
I’m tired of my eating
Going from one extreme to the next
From days or weeks straight of
binge eating until it hurts to breathe
My bedroom,
A place of peace and tranquility,
Or is it a place of vulnerability.
My mirror that takes up half my wall,
Watches as my confidence falls.
Giving up the good, for the better.
Am I not worth it?
Giving up the power for self-misery.
Am I not worth it?
Leaving behind the known,
They deconstruct me until there is nothing left,
Feeding from my skin,
Torturing me until I can’t feel,
Looking down,
I am unchanged,
But I am being twisted,
Swiftly,
They break me down,
I am in a plastic world,
where every limb is artificial,
and every drop of blood in the veins of the dolls around me seizes to flow.
Plastic cannot bleed.
But I am only human,
"Please assist",
My plea as I try to resist
Ana.
The black in my mind
Seems to grow to a kind
Of demonic possession.
It's an obsession, my deal
With the devil.
"You called?"
i wish i had remembered how it felt to fly
my bones light as feathers
i swear i could sore anywhere i wanted to but i didn’t even bother to pay attention to what was in front of me
How do you measure worth?
There was a girl
who decided
that the width of her hips
and the girth of her stomach
i do not have an eating disorder.
i just have a couple social media backup accounts.
one too many.
and the first few posts on the timeline are crazy diets.
Destiny of a cursed “Runt”
Why did I stray?
I misbehaved,
Suddenly I feel beyond ashamed.
Stringent to my body
Rigorous hobby
I’ve got a voice in my head telling me to go ahead in this path of hell
Every breath I take every choice I make is a battle I have to face
But it doesn’t matter which road I take, of the suffering I face
High school days are for picking out your prom dress,
pursuing cheesy relationships that will inevitably fail,
making friends that will last a lifetime,
going to football games.
please don’t make me eat
i am utterly repulsed by food
i can’t gain weight, no one will love me if i do
please don’t make me eat
please don’t make me eat
It happened so fast
no time to spare
it happened so fast
I just froze and stare
it happened so fast
I couldn't react
it happened so fast
I knew I'd be tanted
My illness doesn’t make me broken
I could let it take my life from me
But I choose to grow stronger and rebel
My genuine thoughts are masked by a desire for perfection
Black and white.
It’s all black or white.
Ana is the white. She tells me to starve, starve, starve, you’re not good enough, you’re too fat, thinner is winner, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, fade to perfection.
I don’t take in food
But you don’t expect it from me
Not underweight or obese
You tell me I’m not fat
Deep down, I already know that
Going to boarding school didn’t seem like it was going to be so intimidating.
It was always something I knew I would have to do.
It never hit me that I was on my own
Fading
"You have a decision to make... right now."
She was right
Of course she was.
I was dying.
Right before everyone's eyes
I
Fading
"You have a decision to make... right now."
She was right
Of course she was.
I was dying.
Right before everyone's eyes
I
Open the door
Get on my knees
Lean over the toilet
Make a peace sign
And shove it down my throat
It will sting
Frail bodyTiny bonesFleshlessIs ultimate.
Start small,Skip lunches2 meals a dayIs enough.
Self controlBreakfast uselessIf dinnerIs inevitable.
Counting seems meaninglessIt doesn't matterI'll just count the seconds I wasteI'll count the times I count things I seeAs a child all I did was countThe steps it took me to get placesOr how long it took.
This Kid
I look out the window and see blue sky
Picking up bugs and chasing butterflies
The days are long with play, naps and laughing
This kid is just beginning
Spent time covering up every inch of my body
Making sure I did not show any signs of fat
If I did, I would be mocked
Or so I thought
Even with Florida weather reaching near 100 ° F
I look into the mirror
At my slightly pale figure
As my face thins
From exhaustion
Nothing about my reflection
Is correct and never will be
As told by many
As comprehended by myself
Had a foreboding stranger preemptively prophesied to my girl-self –
Of the past two years I endured, with the hollowed bones of a bird
Readily acquiescent to the beguiling caress of death
We never really grow up.
We're constantly learning.
There is pain in the process,
But there is growth from the pain,
And there is excitement in the growth.
So revel in the excitement.
On that night, the night when I realized
Everything was a waste and
I’m not worth my own time.
Had you been there only for a moment
Just for me to beg you to go
An empty void fills me
Pressing outward like
Expanding ice left
In a flimsy, paper cup.
My cup runneth over
With the sheer vacancy
Contained within,
And the anxiety that is birthed.
Calorie counting,
Tormented by the scale,
At war with the mirror,
Searching for the bones within my own body, like I was a paleontologist,
Praying that they would surface.
But instead,
skinny
i thought i knew about skinny
after all, the media showed me
pictures of kim kardashian in all of her
callipygian glory with her 24 inch waist
but no one told me
the story behind
Knife carving into the soft squishy flesh; blood dribbling off the plate.
Letting out a faint subtle sigh, admiring his handiwork.
To grow up 'neath a tinted veil
For which one has no name
To never fully understand
Why no one sees the same
It sows a sense of lonliness
Estrangement from the masses
She promised me control
and gave me just that
for a price
my life,
my body,
my soul.
Trips to a box
to rid myself of fuel
so happily consumed
so easily expelled
Some people have a fear of heightsI have some friends with a phobia of clownsOthers of mice, the dark, and flying.Me? I have a fear of the numbers that stare back at me from the thing I dread having to step on
Barely Able to stand
it’s likE this grief is Corroding the joy i once had for Life, Had for everythingit feeLs likE being stabbed over and over and over and over again
Touch.
I glide my fingertips over my thighs.
I feel where my skin had once stretched.
I’ve lost 10 pounds this month.
But is it worth it?
I diet, exercise, and exercise,
nothing seems to work.
Still 152lbs.
Swim for a couple hours,
go to the gym,
run around the block twice.
Doesn't work.
Look in the mirror.
I am dying.
Yes my heart is beating
But my mind,
And my soul is suffering
But that doesn’t matter,
Because my heart is beating
I’m breathing
I’m alive
Jogging with my dog,
I lost one hundred pounds
Grilling and steaming
Trying very hard
Amidst eating family
Got to keep running
oh Anna,
how do you look so beautiful,
i've been longing to look like you,
the way you look so graceful,
i wish i could be too,
oh Anna,
please help me
i want to count bones too
From the time you are born to the moment you die,
You’re stuck inside of your body,
And the mere thought of that used to make me cry.
Why do I look like this?
Oh God, I hate myself,
Stop counting those calories, storm. You look fine.
I know, and I've got it under control.
Eat your food. You're scaring me.
I've got it under control.
If you can, try to eat twice a day.
Many days I have feared.
Many days I have feared.
Feared a storefront.
A car window.
A still pool of water.
A click and a flash.
Many days I have feared.
Who looks back at me.
Feeling guilty while your eating, when your hungry is like breathing when your lungs need oxygen.
You listen to the demons in your head.
They ask you if it is worth eating that?
You are fourteen years old
You see girls all around you who look better
Act better
Do better
Get better
And you wonder,
how can I be like them?
You look down at your lunch,
The dwindling down of supper.
Lead me to believe malnutrition was the cause.
I drank more water.
Forgot my pills.
Consumed myself with my work.
I had a toothache
that resided deep in my jaw.
It stung and jolted and even
burned.
This tooth was not like the others.
It didn't want to chew food.
Her soul was hungry for change,
but her mind was made up to stay,
so her soul was left to starve,
her mind in a power-hungry craze.
Nothing distracts her mind from the numbers,
I used to daydream about freedom;
I used to daydream about appreciating
the abundance of food around me;
Recovery
something beautiful
and yet so chaotic,
words sweal
forming memories
thoughts
Recovery
seen as negative,
reminder of what we are
what we could be
No mom , its not because of a boy.No it has nothing to do with school.Just leave me alone , I can't explain it!
starvation
is such a funny thing
empty out the stomach
allow both ears to ring
a death wish
is so useful
Skipping meals, once again
how does this happen,
how is this a trend?
it isn't trendy
to starve oneself
yet here I am
Think about it too much?
or not enough?
Will I ever believe in trust?
believe in me, and my own skin?
or will I fight, against my kin?
"How worthless could you be foolish girl?"
Look in the mirror and see, the imperfections magnified
You don't look like her, that girl on the cover page, nearly perfect, with flaws removed
I own my entire life.
No matter what anyone says.
The peaks of mountains, the flow of streams,
Are all owned by me.
Nothing may tempt me, I am whole.
They told you you were unworthy, fat, and not enough.
School was kind of tough and at times life was rough.
So, you fell into some habits that weren't very healthy
It doesn’t feel right to thank you, yet that’s what I’m doing anyway.
Roots constricting my soul, you used to control who I was.
Please,
Just for one morning
Let me keep down my food.
Please,
Even for one morning
Let me look in the mirror
And tell myself I’m beautiful.
Warm in the summertime with cherry red lips
I guzzle water and try to fit my hands around my hips
I hide under my towel and you tell me what to do
The happy starts to fade,
my hands they begin to shake
my eyes fill with tears and i am running away
my breath starts to catch and i am searchng for a hiding place
I could feel myself fading away
As I bit into the piece of cake
All because I was not strong enough to say no
I debated and contemplated until my stomach had the last word
"Just eat the damn cake" it said
class began
at age ten plus three
you taught me math lessons with calories
from you, the victor, I learned history
I feel her
after every meal, every snack, every tratorious look at anything sweet
Sometimes she can get to angry
Her hand reaching up and grabbing mine
In a matter of days, I have become addicted to letting go.
Letting go of the food that my mouth consumed only hours before.
The smell of vomit filling my nose like gasoline
it burns.
Sometimes I think
I look back to middle school
in health class
we did a project where we researched a mental illness
or something like that
I researched anorexia
and I snap back to now
When my whole life gets turned upside down
you are the one that i turn to
the one that i think i can handle
You have been in and out of my life for awhile
Hello, old friend, it seems like your back again
I thought i got rid of you I guess i was wrong
You were gone for a year and a half
Then one day you jumped right on my back
I haven't thought of you in a while
you turned me down and said
that I was not particularly your taste
so I let the drums in my stomach rumble
but I still couldnt feed you
Hazel eyes staring back through the thin glass of her reflection as she glances at her features; knotty brown hair curling at the ends, creating false little smiles framing her cheeks, listless eyes finding every imperfection and criticizing every
You can see the fading of my skin
My heart has never felt this thin
I do not do this for myself
But because I cannot see anything else
The leaves on the trees are stronger than me
Puppet
Trigger warning: rape, eating disorder, mental illness, self-harm
I have always been your doll
You’ve always just sat there and watched me fall
clenching stomach shaking bones watery eyes runny nose weak knees sore throat all beautiful gifts an addiction bulimia
they say the universe is infinite
that dark matter is constantly expanding
that we are but a speck in this scheme
so why is it
that everytime I look in the mirror
I see something horribly massive
Speak not of my bloodied chest,
but pray instead for some forgotten justice !
Fair Lady Wind, your presence is as welcome
as the flow of my precious life-blood.
I will evermore search of your beauteous
Something bold and something quiet
Indescribable violence
Lots of listening or lots of loudness
Extraordinary measures taken to
Something bold and something quiet
Indescribable violence
Lots of listening or lots of loudness
Extraordinary measures taken to
many wooden slabs
all held up by sturdy planks
leaning and tilting
cloth out and spoons down
glass set precariously
all the spoons are down
What am I?
a balloon, stretched taut
over a fauct and filled
til bulging then filled
and filled some more
Like a teddy bear, stuffed
with cotton until the seams
burst
the best part of the norovirus
is that while it robs you of your breath,
leaves you sweat-shaking with hot chills in bed
it also steals your appetite
finally,
to be empty by no willpower of my own
I am trapped
inside my body
the shell of a girl who cries at the thought
of breakfast, lunch and dinner
or the days when I say "fuck it"
and eat how I should
just to be punished by someone screaming
Found poetry based on the article 5 Lies My Friends With Eating Disorders Have Told Me.
Just me, all alone in this big hungry city!
All I wanted was something.
In December of 2016, I met Ana. She promised me that she could make me beautiful. That I could be skinny, just like those cover girls. That I could have anything my heart desired. She promised that she could make me perfect.
choosing clothes
looking in the mirror
starring into a stranger.
we know tonight we'll skip dinner
to wake up a little bit thinner.
walking with your dog will never be the same
We played "Blackbird" by the Beatles on the bus ride back to the hospital.
And in that moment, we were more than just "sick.
We were alive-
Dear eyes,
This is a callout letter
A "stop lying" letter
A "don't tell me what to do" letter
A "this is God's body" letter
Stop lying, eyes.
Dear ED,
How you made me feel like Eve,
at the early age of 13.
Taking me to the Garden of Eden,
just by opening up that one Teen Vogue magazine.
Why I got bad grades in school
Why I don’t care about the news
Why I listen to inappropriate rap
Why I smoked cigarettes
Why I want to be skinnier
Why I dress differently
Why I like my curtains closed
I met a friend named Ed
He whispered in my ear
I’ll make sure you never get fat
And that was my greatest fear
He held my hand through it all
Dear ED,
or should I call you by your real name?
Anorexia.
Oh, how far we go back.
I have written this letter in my head hundreds of times to you
but I've never had the guts...
(Ha! the irony)
Dear the monster inside me,
I remeber the day you showed your face to me,
Telling me I was ugly and worthless while destroying the inside of me.
I never knew I wasn't worth much until you said it everyday,
Your appetite for the absence of nourishment
is far too great for me to feed
Your thirst for hollowness
is too great for me to quench
Hello, potato chip so salty and crunchy,
4th time I've written to you, it's almost monthly!
I wish you were still here, with your wonderful taste,
my words today are short, so I write to you with haste.
Dear Ana,
I know,
I know I failed,
I know I should have done better.
I know, I know, I know.
I’ll find you one day, I promise.
I almost had you, but I let go.
I let them take you away from me.
Dear irrational insecurities,
Only a parasite that thrives, a ghost
Unbelieving of complements and praise
To my best friend,
I should tell you that I never meant to break your remote-controlled car in the third grade when I was chasing after it and it shattered under my size 7 feet.
Dear Daddy,
As I sit at this blank screen and wonder what to write.
As I think back to everything you've taught me, and realized you were right.
You were the world to me, my sun, moon and light.
To a Certain Skeletal Sickness
Dear Ana, you know your devastation on me.
When you take a physical part away, you also steal my soul
Once
There was a castle.
In that castle was a princess.
Cursed,
By danger and imperfection.
Dear Mom:
I would have committed suicide because of the pain I was going through everyday
All Just to Obey
130, and she’s sad- but she’s healthy, oh how she glows-
but she does not see it and instead sees a shameful, undeserving girl
I was 2017 and 104.5 all at once.
Walking in I said a prayer,
sitting down a curse.
How could I let myself get to this point?
The lowest of the low,
Dear Bulimia,
I thought that I loved you
Long ago
Without you, I'd have been
All alone
When no one else was there
You were
Reliable, safe, no one compared
I was 93 pounds of fat.
I was hiding from my family.
They couldn't know I felt fat.
They couldn't know I didn't eat.
This can't be my fault.
I have to work out twice a day to look skinny.
I've been patiently waiting for you to notice me like a girl standing in the corner at a party just waiting to be danced with. But you never notice me.And every time I try to give you a compliment you always seem to get mad at me.I'm sorry if I al
When you’re a child you long for secrets
Memories from long ago, hope for the future
Small collections of thoughts passed from person to person
“don’t tell anyone, please.”
You whisper between yourselves
ravenous creature
feeding on scraps and whispers
tired of waiting
no longer sitting
patiently or silently
Dear Anorexia,
Before we met, my favorite color was blue.
What once resembled the shade of the ocean and sky,
Became a reminder of all that I had been through:
I see the gift all wrapped up
Beautiful and shining in the light of the tree
As we sing about thy, thou, and thee.
A beautiful bow
It grows from, "Are you hungry? Want some more? " to
"You've ate all that? You're getting more?" to
eating in silence, only when you're alone,
eating to the point of sickness.
They sit with stomachs rumbling and talk about how they eat, They sit with smiling faces and cry under their sheets, They sit with silent voices and scream inside their heads, They sit with normal people And wonder how, oh how? They sit and stand,
dear anorexia and bulimia,
oh, how I loathe the relationship we have.
you’ve raised me up higher than I ever could have dreamed,
only to throw me down
It was getting better,
But it was never really over.
The wounds that she thought were closed became ripped open,
The stiches she thought might heal someday,
Immortal.
Dear Ana,
I’m sorry to be writing this so late,
But it seems you want to visit again.
No.
I’m sorry, but no.
Dear Alisha,
There's so much that I could tell you,
so much that I could say.
So much that I could wish for,
so much that I could think of every day.
Kneeling in the shower, hands pressed tightly to her ribs. Who is this frightened child? Does she even exist? She took a step back from the world, no one knows she’s alive. Now she’s grasping at her life, just trying to survive.
Water.
Low-calorie, no-calorie, sugar-free and…water.
When i only ate a bite of my lunch and threw the rest away.
You didnt notice.
I am not her
I do not have the effortless waves that fall below her shoulders
The works of art created that exceeds any previously set expectations
The good grades
Top athlete awards
Perfect social status
i am in love,
in love with an illness.
she blooms around me,
reaching up with long, loving arms.
she wraps herself around me,
Because you loved me, you told me to lose weight
You loved my hair long, when I wanted to cut it short
You loved my perfect grades, when I was struggling to keep up
Shattered,
Into millions of glittering fragments,
The last remnants of the dream I held onto so fiercely
I watched it fall,
Even before it happened,
That wobbling self-fulfilling prophecy
having an eating disorder means wanting everyone to know and no one to ask
it means accidentally leaving your lunch at home and proudly telling friends no thanks when they offer to share
Beauty doesn't always
come easily.
Insecurity will rear its
ugly head.
But you, my love,
You are so
perfect.
To be like you, one could only
wish.
So please
Why do I think that I can't do things
How am I my own least biggest fan
I used to think that I could do anything
I used to believe I could hold the world in my hand
Tuck in the shirt and tighten the belt, it'll help you look smaller.
Tighten the apron.
Eat breakfast because it should be the only big meal you have today.
I wonder if they think I'm beautiful?
Sixteen years from last May you were mine, I came into your life and you welcomed me in your own way. I still remember each day as though it was yesterday, hunting fairies, reading stories, chasing bugs, giving hugs, playing dolls, throwing balls
Every plate of food is a challenge, a triple-dog dare, a gauntlet thrown.Call it whatever you want, every plate of food is a challenge.The journey of my Fork from the plate to my mouth is a struggle.
Pretty little beauty
defiled by poisonous thoughts
Disintegrating smile
her time is running out
slaughtered by the envy
wicked as the wind
candy coated apple
this beauty's most prominent sin
After the apple
she doesn’t eat much.
Not that she did before.
Being a princess
Means being beautiful.
Being beautiful
Why should I not want to be skinny?
Why would I not want to feel pretty?
Why should I not want to not hate myself every waking moment?
Because the cold and numbness was overwhelming
The hating never truly stopped
I try, I really do
But it never seems enough
It plagues my mind, Day and night
The voice just won’t shut up.
I constantly want more
But at the same time, want less
No more worms for Big Bird,
Because of the words he has heard.
All the voices taunting him at once,
Making him feel like such a dunce.
He does not want to be "Big Bird" anymore.
Do NOT be fooled by the narrative we are fed in our everyday lives, through media and fools. Eating disorders are not glamorous, do not let the lies seep through. Go ahead.
Let me tell you a story,
And allow me some of your time,
As well as some of your heart.
Let me tell you a story about a girl named Snow White,
A girl traditionally known for her beauty,
Her purity,
Your ribs are screaming at the surface of your skin, your spine like jagged mountains splitting your back
The light in your eyes is hidden behind a film of cigarette smoke and sadness
I lie here with him, with her.
He is holding me like I am his all
and I lie here stiff as a board.
She stole my heart,
a heart that was once his,
a heart that was once warm with love and passion.
This cloudy mindset,
now my norm.
The aching pains,
I learned to ignore.
The feverish chills,
that I possess.
Just another day,
of living with death.
I cannot think straight.
Ana, they call her
One "n" not two
Ana, they call her
A friend for you
Ana, they call her
Give her a few
For Ana gets jealous
Of friends who are new
The first time I heard of anorexia
I was eleven years old.
A girl in my class had passed out in the lunch line because she was starving herself.
The ironic thing was,
She was about to buy an ice cream desert.
Twirl, twirl on the stage, light as air
Satin cages that hide the despair
Scars and Blisters causing pain
Of a dreams that will soon wain
Take off those satin cages and breathe
Can’t see it, can’t have it, can’t taste it,
Or you will surpass your limit.
Don’t let your body throw a fit.
In the end, you know that it’s worth it.
Growing up with people always telling me that I’m so beautiful
But did they really mean it?
4,5,6,7,8 years old, not really thinking about it.
For the First Time
The first time I had ever heard of anorexia
I was eight years old,
And I was sitting on Mommy’s lap.
“They starve themselves,” she told me
“Why would they do that?”
Dear Bulimia,
Look, I'm glad you came in and put your feet up, (on my brand new coffee table...),
but I'm afraid now isn't really a good time, I'm afraid there's no such thing as a really
I feel my heart is racing
my mind is constantly chasing
yet here I am just spacing
desperately embracing
rapidly effacing
i'm falling and displacing
Her mind was the world map.And I wanted to explore all of its entirety.Even the oceans, trenches, and abyssesIn which I wasn’t aware of what I’d discover. Her long locks of curls fell over her shouldersAs if her eyes weren’t enough beauty.Invitin
Why can I not recognize
Through searching eyes
That person in the mirror?
Eyes dead,
Mouth red
From the constant wane of worry.
How long ago,
Did I have a glow
While she once found comfort in pain, she now finds consolation in pleasure. Funny how it happens that way.
I was running on Empty that year
I was light-headed and giddy with how many fingers I could fit around my wrist
and
so sure that this would make me Better
Day one
Thin black mist
Floating like clouds
Quiet little thoughts
Singing sultry melodies
Malicious lying mirrors
Distorting initial images
Shiny silver razor
Tempting shaky fingers
look down
up
not good enough
your thighs too flabby
stomach always overstuffed
an apple for lunch
see it's not so tough
good
don’t you feel better now?
look down
In the mirror, though faint and murky
I see a sight that makes me worry
Into my eyes there peers another
A person much different than last Summer
Her once full cheeks are hollowed out
The voices were never nice to me.
They tormented and taunted me,
I was never good enough to them.
I'm a Barbie Girl,in a Barbie World.Life's fantastic: Ifeel like plastic,aiming for an eighteen-inch waist because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.I feel like plastic,having to choose
Was he really that desperate?The words pound through my mind.Was he really that desperate?My legs threaten to give in beneath me. Was he really that desperate?
Waiting
Waiting for what feels like an eternity
Waiting for someone to notice her
Help her
Save her from herself
Anorexia. Insomnia. Rejectophobia.
la danza del fuego: a lesson on Love
My eyes are oddly captivated by the person looking at the mirror,
I am critiquing my curves.
Naked.
Burning.
It’s a funny story now:
A collection of anecdotes and funny jokes,
A reminder of the worst days of her life.
She laughs as she tells wide-eyed friends
Horror stories,
The likes of which
My skin is wrong
It's a baggy jumpsuit
Deep sea diving gear
A huge space suit
Heavy
Big
And loose
It's not me
Shattered glass.
I want to be shattered.
Shattered glass is so
Delicate and beautiful.
You see, I've always wanted
To be small. But not small
Like the pretty girls in
I look in the mirror for introspection .And daily I see so many imperfections .I want to achieve my perceived perfection But the voice always gives much personal rejection .To fat ,to dumb ,stupid, and useless .The voice brought harm to the bod
”im not hungry” , says the stomachthe stretch of the esophagus is in yoga practice with my stomach lininginstead of dining there is immense thirstoften for fine winewhich feels like kisses past my tonsils
There are feathers here.
Light, beautiful, no one can
Trust them, they can betray
You, but they're beautiful.
There is cold here.
Excuses wrapped in
Coats that will never
Stomach shriveled
Legs weak
Loss of appetite
Loss of sleep
Constantly freezing
Constantly stressed
Why oh why am I so depressed?
Hunger is gnawing
I'm feeling so faint
Tears roll down from eyes to the ground;
They tickle my cheeks and chin, yet I am not smiling.
As my face becomes wet; my hands become soaked
The reflection
wants me to die.
The reflection
wants me to starve.
The Reflection
wants to be loved.
The Reflection
wants to change.
The reflection
wants to be changed.
She came and went.
as if it were easy
for all of us
to stand back and
watch.
Faster, slower, stop.
the water continued
dripping
collecting
cascading towards
It’s 11:43 pm and all I can here is the voice in my head silently screaming at me about all the calories I've eaten today.
Struggling for words
drowning under an imaginary weight
the shackles of bulimia.
Sinking faster now
no end in sight.
But there is a way out
freedom is obtainable because
I want to be free.
I was an artist that fell in love with the perfection of her canvis and my body was in the hands of my own
Obsession fell short of how I felt with these two clay makers
Let me eat
more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
and more
Day scotching, calories burning, shirt unfitting Yes they were alarming "happy birthday boss"Happy birthday even my stomach began groaningAs its inner beings rejoiced for the yummy food scent;
You may
Shut me up
Break my will,
Imprison me,
just because you
disagree
with
my
beliefs.
Tell her that the way her bones stick out from her body is sexy
Explain to her that you don’t like “big girls”
Tell her that the gap in her thighs
It is delicious and sweet,
So simple to enjoy,
When not having to worry about a thing.
For me that's not the case.
I love food, at least I did
But the relationship is on and off.
I met this girl named Ana,
She was with me every day.
I met this girl named Ana,
She always wanted to stay.
Ana was so perfect,
I fucking hate my body.
Let that sink in:
How much I hate myself.
How much I want to disappear.
How much I hate my life.
Ana is only fourteen,
She looks in the mirror,
She doesn't like what she sees,
Her body looks fat, it's becoming clearer.
Ana doesn't like to eat,
But sometimes she is forced too,
I rush to the bathroom
Don’t cry, don’t cry
the guilt is heavier than me
the fear so strong, I can’t see
what’s in front of me
Who is that?
Hate never silenced her wordsAnd compliments never brought about changeAll she ever did was binge and purgeBut her mind remained tainted and strange
i dragged my tongue over the moon,
bit down on craters, binged on dust.
i ate the moon dry because
i needed something to fill me up.
Is it bad that I see myself as FAT?
Is it bad that I secretly want to be underweight?
Is it bad that im never completely happy?
Is it bad that I lie to my loved ones?
Is it bad that I cannot eat for days?
most mornings, we rise
the sun filling the sky,
sanguineness in our minds.
though our hopes may be high,
anticipations soon shatter our proclamations.
Walking to the kitchen for something to eat
Rubbing my stomach, I smelt the meat.
When I came in the kitchen I saw eggs and bacon.
From the scent of the food, I was already taken.
When I look in the mirror,
I see more than a reflection.
I see confidence.
I see beauty.
I see love.
I see laughter.
I see hope.
I see a friend.
I see trust.
I see me.
Anorexia nervosa. Battle of the mind. Battle of the body.
It all describes the same struggle. It was the disease that landed me in the hospital.
Therapy of all kinds was scheduled. Art, music, family, group, writing.
Scream. Scream his name over the top from the roofs.Cry as hard as you can, because you will.You will cry, for weeks, months, maybe years.Depends on how much you loved him.
Food isn't food
Food is calories
Food is my fat on my bones
Food is poison
No one gets it do they?
They are addicted to a killer
Food only makes ugly
Eat it if you wish a bad body
My Toothy Smile
I return from class,
stumble to the kitchen,
throw the backpack to the floor.
I have felt pain in my life. The kind of which many can relate. I know that pain, therefore I know the idea of fate. You end up down and out finding yourself without cause. Even sometimes finding yourself clinging to social withdraws.
There is no look that comes with sadness,
There is no certain style.
At the end of they day, we've all walked our own mile.
Whether you wore heals for that, or a snapback hat.
Suicide has no style.
I am in love with a girl... a girl who is afraid of breakfast,
who brews coffee in the morning like gasoline feeding a starving engine.
It started innocently in high school
Entering those broad double doors
Gazing at the slender and sleek girls
Wishing I could be one of them
I was content with what I had
Until I got those looks of
You know the thing that gets me?
I'm sick, but no body sees.
I'm sick of this world because I don't want to be
put on the very top of the totem pole by my family,
or talked about jokingly because I'm skinny.
Don't romanticize this and say some boy or girl will pick you up off the floor and hold you in his arms and wipe your tears away and kissing you anyways. This is the gruesome reality of always smelling like puke. It never goes away.
Today
Today I started up the set of thirteen stairs it takes to get to my room,
But I was too weak so I stopped at the sixth step,
Sat down,
And caught my breath how many days, had it been?
Today
This spider veins crawl up my arms
Lining the pale skin with blue
My body tinged a sickly yellow
My expiration overdue
The cage around my ribs is cracked
How can a single word
Rach up healthcare bills, wage war
And tie a noose? A
Handful of letters leading
To a mouthful of pills and
A heart-full of pain.
Sh. Hush little baby don't say a word. Mama's gunna buy you a mocking bird.
Calm. My anxiety is gone and I'm again calm. Maroon painted finger nails comb through my hair and I'm calm.
Oxford dictionary defines "perfect" as Having all the required or desirable elements,qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be:
Your pretty princess is starving
She’s becoming skin and bones
Losing weight
Losing shape
You can’t tell with her clothes
Day 1: You told me I was fat, ugly, and worthless. I believed it. I knew it before. Am I pretty now?
shattered glass,
blade of grass,
garden gnombe,
standard home
pretty paint,
a smell so faint,
cover girl,
satrts to hurl,
porcieln bowl,
skinny pole,
rolling dice,
Feet together
Head up
Collarbones out
Flat tummy
Hipbones jutting out
Hair long
Pin straight
Sleeves back
Clear wrists
Eyes focused
Blue sky
Fake smile
anorexia and bulimia became my entire life for 4 solid, miserable years. every month i’d stop eatting till they took me to the hospital, then when i got home, i’d do it again. every month i’d drop around 10 pounds, some months i’d drop 20.
When I mix grayscale with pink,
Just to find gray ink.
When all silver linings I caught,
came shimmering down
like the last rain of spring.
Whose blood am I spilling,
like the rain?
Got red hair.
Feel like that’s what people notice about me first.
Not my eyes, my smile,
My hair.
I was born Oct 4th 1998
I Am the product of comforting hugs, gut wrenching laughter, and humbleness
I Am the product of societies harsh views on bodies, self image, and self worth
I Am a mindless muncher, proffesional purger, and a caloric chess master
I start the day with smiles and smoothies
I end the day with brownies and movies
They say that chocolate is a girl's best friend
and it's true, there's not much that it can't mend.
I Am
It told me I was fat
Said I was ugly and not worth love
Shouted in my ear until I could hear nothing else
Blinded me from seeing the truth
And then the truth was all I could see
Life life can be very very
hard care less and cruel
but the thanig is
we have to live through it
pepole do expect us to be pride ful ,
smart and every thang meaning
It was a long road
littered with possibilities.
But as I walked along,
my feet no longer touched the ground.
Suspending above
this road of life,
I became accustomed
to invisibility.
Who am I?
That is the question now isn't it,
am I the girl who rode down the street on her barbie bike smiling as bright as the sun,
or the teenager who starved herself because she could not see her beauty?
Five pounds and 6 ounces
Sick and yellowed
Hospitalized during Christmas
Elementary school now
Crying because I couldn't fit into Bobbi Jack tees
I didn't fit into anything
Who am I?
That is the question now isn't it,
am I the girl who rode down the street on her barbie bike smiling as bright as the sun,
or the teenager who starved herself because she could not see her beauty?
Life is pretty great when you can look up at the sky
And think of dinner without wanting to cry.
I love her more than I can tell
myself not to
White doves and whipped cream
For the first time I found an end to me
She's in my head. Soft like bread
She breathes and I am
Afraid of my weight, I invited her in unaware of her vampiric properties.
She excepted with a slither entering my every thought and action.
She made me get rid of food to make room for her.
My sun-kissed hands wrap around this warm, steaming mug.
Bringing this mug to my eager pink lips,
What is this? this new experiment I have started.Is it my fault? or something more?I sit on the floor, and bow like I'm praying.
The word slithers between your teeth
latching onto my jacket
weighing me down with the mistaken phrase
for I will never be able to utter
the freeing words of recovered
I will keep scanning the calories
A girl of just fourteen
Decides to go lean
Little by little stop the meals
Skip the breakfast
Take the heel
A moment on the lips
A lifetime on the hips
A year passes
She's underweight
Anna
“You can’t have sex wearing a wig” she said
That line could’ve made me laugh
If she wasn’t clutching the sides of her head
Wondering what choice did she have.
What is my purpose in this world?
To take up space,
to be a filler in an empty place.
The idea of existence has always been confusing,
Am I here to succeed?
Or will I end up losing?
I have an addition problem, I must admit.
1 means one more, and 2 is spelled t-e-n.
30 is basically twenty-nine,
And anymore feels like shit.
But this is not a decrypting test,
“It’s all in your head.”
“Chemical imbalance. You just have to deal with it.”
“You’re just looking for attention.”
Mirror, Mirror on the wall
Who’s the fattest of them all?
I’ll tell you who it’s the girl
Staring back at me
Covered in scars
With no gap in sight to see.
A night like usual, though a bit
Still, and so temperate that you
Scarcely feel the air as you walk to the house,
Twist the key and press your shoulder
Against the opening door.
The heat escapes your "perfect" body.
The bruises on your tailbone green.
The hunger pains bring satisfaction.
A skeleton too early for Halloween.
She looked inside herself.
She didn;t look in the mirror this time.
She looked away and than she looked inside.
Maybe she wasn't beautiful -
maybe she would never be the princess .
I stared too long in the mirror
My shirt fit snug
My jeans were tight
I skipped a meal
Slept proudly at night
Control felt empowering
"That girl is so skinny",
"Her waist is so small".
Why can't I be perfect-
thin, pretty, and tall?
My stomach rolls over,
My legs jiggle as I walk.
All I want is a thigh gap,
You need relief from reality.
You take the pain as though a cue,
To start consuming everything possible,
Because the pain’s consuming you.
You need relief from the hurt.
The mirror was shattered, at least to her
the pictures were scattered, all over the floor
she saw no beauty, no light, no love
she saw horror, tragidy, nothing dreamed of
The world drains of colour
Black mourning in my eyes
Too many times
I've stared death in the eye
So close
I could feel his cold
Stagnent breath on my cheeks
Hunger yawns in me
Like some waking creature
It grows, reaching angrily
Searching, scratching, howling,
For something to consume
I give it nothing
So the hunger sits, smoldering
She speaks in tongues
But you understand her ramblings
No matter what
Because she's all you know.
She moves in sync
With your breaths
And broken steps because
She follows you always.
You seek to control me?
I'm your creation, I've broken free
It's cute, you trying to change the world
I used to look fat, but thanks to my parents-I lost my weight.
But, not the weight that overflew through mind and made me hate myself the most.
Hate myself that I didn't even lose weight-the right way...
The most peaceful moment of my life happened
as I was laying on the ground of my doctor's office unconscious from malnutrition,
and I didn't realize that I'd passed out
Sticks and stones dont compare to the pain inside me
wound up too tight to be fixed
my heart bursts but does not bleed
my eyes sting but do not tear
because I've taught myself not to cry
Your odor
so strong, potent, sweet, and tantalizing,
lures me in every time.
Your layers appear soft and spongy, your glaze smooth and milky.
My mouth waters,
My tongue spikes,
My lips part,
My shoulders are drooping underneath the heavy weight of expectation.
I'm being dragged by the leash of society.
They said that recovery was an uphill battle -
I have never before trecked up a twisted slope for so long.
I figured my frustration and fear - of weight, of fat, of feeling bad -
Self image.
I see myself differently.
I'm not pretty.
Everyone.
They constantly disagree.
Say I'm wrong
Her name was Evangeline.
She was the most beautiful daughter
The sweetest and most generous partner
A loving, supportive sister
To a proud, but worried brother
I remember the girl behind the scenes,
the girl with no filter, the girl with no make up.
I was the girl behind the scenes,
the girl with no push up bras and just an A cup.
I have watched the love of my life
Fluctuate her weight
In attempts to control it
And control her disordered eating
I have watched her eyes sink
Her ribs poke out
There I was
another day
spent counting miles
subtracting calories
calculating deficits.
Run, run to look good, run to look pretty, run so boys will like you.
Mia whispers that I could be better.
Ana shouts at me to pull it together.
Mia says she wants what is best.
Day after day
my skin tightens
exposing the bleached cage of my ribs
Day after day
a stitch is added
to seal my thirsty lips
Day after day
perfection becomes reality
My mothers’ words echo“Healthy”“Your figure”“So beautiful”Health makes me cry and I do not want a figureOf any kindAnd I know her version of beauty is the flesh that I need to scald and rip from my bones.
Thanksgiving feast
Family gathered around the table
Smiles, laughter, love, joy
But what I saw...
Calories. Fat. Guilt. Humiliation.
Thanksgiving feast
Family gathered around the table
Smiles, laughter, love, joy
But what I saw...
Calories. Fat. Guilt. Humiliation.
Birthday party
Children running and playing
There are demons pressing in on me.
There are demons pressing out on me.
It's as if when my eyes hit the mirror
they hit the bullseye for my body to grow.
the bullseye is really a trigger.
I wish I could say that my curtain was drawn by someone else
Someone bigger and scarier, my own villian
Someone I could point at and blame and run from
But I guess one day I decided,
Breathe in
Breathe out
The exhale is a gust
blowing the pain of depression out
Bulimia catch the tale wind leave me please
No you bring me
right back to the beginning
Momma don't drink
It really gets to you
All the pressures
But the game I play
Is pick your poison
It's not much fun
I usually lose
But that's okay
You're the one
Who gave me the game
Her body is a house.
Skin cells heddng lie peeling pain;
her sturdiest founation is on he face
Wallpaper and pastels
jus owdery primer befor thefirst coat of pinks
She is fadd tile,
Surrounded by laughs and smilesWhile I just listenOnly my ears are openSealed lips shutWords can't be spokenI understandThis is who I amI say what they want to hear
When in the dark,
there is no light.
When in the dark,
there is no sight.
I am as happy as can be when in the dark,
but when the lights come on, happiness is no longer free.
Counting the calories,
Secretly loving each bite,
Is being skinny
Worth all this fight?
Seeing your hipbones?
Collarbones too?
Searching for a thigh gap,
even though there's so much "you"?
Let me live in your bed,naked as a fishribs emerging day by day like gills as you steal my breath.Moss will creep over my ankles -oh, keep us from the harsh heavy air,swim languidly through the sheets
When I was a 14
I went on a school trip
We ate dinner at a
Buffett, when I
Feeling full still
Walked up with my
Friend who didn’t want
I stand up fast and feel the rush, I haven't eaten, not even once.
It's been 5 days and 9 pounds later, im still fat, I hate her.
I hate as I look at the mirror and see the fat girl wearing size 2X.
I'm custom-built to expectationA situational chameleonBut no one knows,Because what they see is only what I show them
I crept through the halls;
head down, bones protruding from my flesh;
admiring those who have not been consumed
by this angst I had burning inside of me.
For years,
I hid behind glasses of water
I never ate at parties
and the family started to notice.
I refrained from speaking
and the hushed concern grew louder.
I wore sweaters in the summer
and my mother was continously questioned.
They call it unhealthy I used to disagreethat everything I used to do to mePut death right in my faceThey call it a disorder I can't say much moreEverything I used to hear was what tore
Perfection is a crutch
Fragile to the touch
Beautiful from a distance
But never amounting to much
I remember the crippling fear
“What when I crash and burn?”
She was the fat girl her whole entire life,
Then one day she decided to eat right.
She didn't see results as fast as she had hoped,
So she stuck her finger down her throat and poked.
My throat burns
With that vile taste in my mouth
Am I satisfied?
I look at my reflection
And see an ugly girl
With an ugly soul
So I eat and eat
But when I’m done
I know it hurts
But please don't fret
The best of it
Has not come yet
I know the rain feels cold and wet
But don't do something you'll regret
If it starts to rain
"Well you look well-nourished,"
As she rolls her sharp eyes.
That's just what she sees,
But I'm covered in lies.
Now the words still boil
And the thougts still swarm,
Her name is Madeline; my name is Madeline.
She smiles at everything; I don't think everything is great.
She cracks jokes to make people laugh; it is sometimes hard to make myself laugh.
beep. beep. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
my back is sweaty against the thick cotton-white quilt.
the bed is drained of color,
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
atoms manifest to make me up
Minus the food I used to purge
How many atoms am I now?
People don't know I'm a prozac-popping
Self-harm recovered, radiant teen.
Standing in the front of the mirror, I hear someone murmur,
"The problem with bones
is that they are hidden beneath all my fat."
The real problem with bones
is that they have become symbols.
To my Dear Daughter:
Year 1:
I hope I’m not too off key for you,
because I will be singing lots of lullabies to your small form.
Ones to rock you in my arms,
to make you drift into quiet nothingness.
So much you can see from the eyes of me,
The real and fake of our society,
How beautiful to them is perfection,
The more beauty you have the more attention,
But what the eyes of society do not see
dear past me,
it's been tough
you've endured so much pain
for one so young
it sounds cliche
but you and i both know that it's true
you've dealt with a lot
I stand in front of my worst enemy, the mirrorI stare at my 5 foot 7 large frame body and I begin to cry
How come he looks old even though he's only 17?
How come he has stress lines around his eyes?
How come he feels alone?
How come he says "I hate you" more than "I love you?"
How come he's so grumpy all the time?
Weeping Willow dry your eyes
Weeping Willow please don't cry
Weeping Willow no more tears
A beautiful fake smile wearing,
Hides my internal tearing.
I spend my days stealing,
Robbing my body of healing.
Bones and ribs are showing,
Baggy clothes keep them from knowing.
Oh my God, the mother cooed, pinching her cheeks
Oh my God, the uncle said as she pointed out how tall she has gotten
Oh my God, noticing how her flat stomach as she lay
I am beyond forgettingForgetting about loveLossOr any other emotion or feeling.I am beyond forgettingForgetting who I amTrulyOr who I was.I am beyond forgetting
I am not going to explain the scars on my wrist
Or size of my waist to the ratio of my hips.
I’m not going to apologize for the way my ribs protrude
God help me.
Give me a hand.
help me out.
im drowning in your presence,
but it is evil that reaches his hand out to help.
to pull me out of these rising waters.
Let me read it. No.
Let me read it. No.
No, because it's about her.
About the way she eats and the way she doesn't.
I don't like to think that my heart stopped beating
on the night when the blanket wouldn't warm up and the moonless night seemed especially suffocating.
You think that you are strong,
But you are not.
Even I can see that you are in need of fixing.
It started out as something I could have control over in a world where control is something out of your reach and I should have known that having it was too good to be true...
Every morning I wake up and see the beautiful woman I aspire to be
Every day is the same, the mirror on the wall, mocking me and taunting me to be someone I am not
Beat me down
Pull my hair
A constant frown
It's so unfair
My mind is distorted
It makes me see things that aren't really there
My body is contorted
God, I wish I didn't care
Thighs is a fat word
The i is dotted with cellulite
And the g curls around to cup my ass
My thighs have no gap
My thighs touch unless he is pushing them apart
In the beginning, there was nothing.
There were only dreams.
The first day, God made darkness.
It likes to fill your thoughts
Ambition is a vital, mighty flame
whose smoldering blaze is within Us all,
kindling our dreams from inaction to vigor
whilst heating our innermost passions.
I try to hold on
I try not to break
But trying isn’t good enough
And sometimes you know you’re gonna fall
But you pick up the pieces
Of your messed up world
And your broken heart
Numbers, no im not talking about math or accounting or statistics im talking about life.
By the time I was a born my life was run by numbers; when I eat, when I nap.
10
20
50
200
They add up
And I know
Subconsciously calculating
I can feel them
Growing
The food goes in
And I feel it weigh me down
200
50
20
I've learned to not think of food as pleasure. I don't rightly see why I saw it that way before. I've come to love the ache, the growl. I eat enough, just enough to have energy and take that energy and burn it all off.
I watched my sister out of the corner of my eye as we ate, her fork pushing around the rice, mushing it up with the beans.
I am nothing but the insatiable hunger,
the catatonic body it inhabits,
marching about and pretending at life
Consumed by the urge
There’s no room for your words
There’s no room for my thoughts
For rhyme or for reason
Food.
How delightful, wonderful, beautiful.
Sensuous and pleasurable.
Such a strange longing we have
For such small objects.
Actually, it's not strange at all.
Sensuous and pleasurable,
For all the girls standing in the line
For the bathroom.
For all the girls,
Like myself.
With a gaping black hole in the back of my throat
Waiting for the next storm to come.
Why is it that mankind can never truly find happiness?
It can be grasped for brief moments in time before it disappears once
"Treat me like glass, tear me to shreds like I'm paper." She had said.
She spoke harsh words, but she whispered them like sweet nothings.
The monster in my head.
Inhale, exhale.
You hear them
Names in textbooks, thrown around
Anorexia, Bulimia, EDNOS
People don't understand
Why not eat? food is yummy
It is not about food at all
it is a way to deal with life
Everyday, I wake up to see rosesEveryday, I see the bright sun and it's rays Everyday, I seem happy and giggly,but I'm not, Oh I am notI keep falling, I'm falling slowly
I know how it feels.
To hate the food you put in your mouth.
So why not go without?
A day?
Barely eat anything?
Not a problem.
Because you can use it.
Look at me
What do you see?
My body is hollow
I want to be free
Free from this curse
That keeps getting worse
When I look in the mirror
It won't be reversed
Her heads down in the hallway,
she doesnt wanna be there,
covers her scars with her sleeves,
and her face with her hair;
And when she gets home,
theyre always so hard to please,
she hides in her room,
Your eyes see that she's smiling,
your ears hear his laughter.
Your mind tells you that they're okay,
but your heart tells you to look further.
Your eyes say that nothing is wrong,
It was always either too hot or too cold in her troubled mind.
And no amount of tossing or turning could ever
tucker her out enough for her to tuck her self in,
at night her mind was a race car that never ran out of gas,
I dare you to try.
I dare you to fly.
I dare you to be who you really are instead of the mask you pretend to be.
I dare you to love with all your heart.
I dare you to make your life a work of art.
Plaster walls,full of cracksbreaking in.Press my backagainst the door…Falling through the floor.Mirror, mirror that I see,Mirror, dear, do you love me?Hunger bites,claws my skin.
Ask the girl in the glass how she survives on just air.
Ask her, how does she last when she devours nothing but despair?
And remorse coats her every attempt to ignore what she sees,
staring at the yellow girl
crunching cheerios
lock-jawed cow chewing cud
Her spine
pushes through
tissue paper skin
tube through the nose
wading through mucus
dried blood
I used to think she was selfish
People are starving and she rejects food?
Food that is offered to her
Is body image that important to her?
It never was before, so why an obsession now?
I never understood her
Yeah, you had me there for a whileYou had me on my kneesYou took my glow and my pretty smileIt was my body but you had the keysI felt completely dead back thenI couldn't even laugh
Every man’s life ends the same way.it is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another..People fear death even more than pain.it’s strange that they fear death.at the point of death,the pain is over..Do n
A life without love is no life to live,But a life without you now that would be sin.So for now I'll wait,And tomorrow we'll see,What the future hides for you and for me.
When I was ten, I searched for mosters under my bed. Now that I'm older they say that I'm crazy. They say it's all in my head.
They say "stay strong,
keep moving on"
while I'm shuttering and cold;
and I've been growing old,
of the voices in my head.
And, I'm all alone.
"it's just a phase," they say.
Flavor is found beneath
where thou ist not looking
cheese can cover
but what money can't buy
I'm finally going to fill up the pages of my life.
No more blanks. No more hesitation to fill in the spaces
with bold, deliberate strokes.
I'm going to be able to focus again
Just one job may change my life. Involving a part of my past that haunted my days. To make this simpler let me rephrase. I once had a fear of eating food. From experience I know it can ruin your mood. Being social was a constant struggle.
My best friend killed herself on the twenty-eighth Thursday, 5 years ago and I missed four days of school and my mom wanted to know 'Why?' My friend was always a fan of beauty
but what she did was not beautiful at all.
When models are out on the catwalk, they are not marketing clothes they are selling bodies.
Those who admire them do not care for the price of their shirts or shoes.
I've decided to eat today...
Is a cup of coffee okay?
Only if it's black,
Maybe some strawberries?
Only 2 allowed for you,
Okay.. What about some carrots?
You're really pushing it,
The way that girls have no self esteem
degrading themselves constantly, like they're a piece of meat
not being able to look in the mirror without something they hate
Ham! Ham! Ham!
Danm I like Ham!
Even My Aunt Pam
Likes Ham!
My dog likes Ham!
But I Told Him to Scram
My Ham!
I never swam
sorry manm
yes I am
Man lady do I lke Ham!
Fix all the things that I have out done
All of the fake and fraud that I have become
Pick up the pieces that have shattered the floor
I’m tired.
I’m tired of turning on a TV that only shows me pictures of pretty girls, perfect girls, all a size double 0.
Envious looks,something said mistook.The fear of your existence,you're unworthyUnworthy of what?Don’t really care, But
It’s not about the fame,
It’s not about the money,
Well maybe just enough so I don’t go hungry.
It’s about making a game,
It’s about making a story,
Using every subject that’s in my inventory
Skinny psycho
they call me
but they dont know
I'm falling
With all I have to show
They say I'm too thin
I'm losing too many pounds
I
Might as well
Have walked
A thousand miles
Or more
Searching
For something
So unattainable
It could only come
In my dreams
The cynics roam the streets.
they drain the naivete and the innocent beauty wherever they go.
If I could change one thing,
I would help them see that Beauty is not what they believe it to be.
5'3 and 140 pounds.
Doctor says there's risk,
could become overweight.
Better work out soon, tisk tisk.
5'3 and 130 pounds.
Parents praise showers her,
With inspired faces and dedication
What would i do
what would i change
would i change my apperance
would i give my dad a raise
no, i know what to do
possibly give the starving people some food
yes, thats exactly right
The splash against the bowl
The rush of blood to my cheeks
Elation. Control. Ecstasy.
Eat me up, I care no more
Parts of me go swirling down
Piece by piece by filthy piece
Fix my hair, fix my smile
Tell the girl who thinks if she looses the weight
The boy of her dreams will ask her on a date
Tell the boy who is popping pills before it's too late
Tell the student who's medicating to stay awake
Im laying on the courch with almost nothing on my mindUntil I see the cupboard and look through it to findThe things I've been avoiding and things I fear the most
I tell you of your inner beauty, the kind that fills your soulYet, I stare into my own and find a lump of coalI envy your appearance, the glow thats shines from your face
Psychology class has stirred me, and I want to address this burden.
In fact, I will use apostrophe to address it in second-person.
You've been terrorizing people; that's a well-known fact.
I walk the halls alone, hearing giggles from "Innocent" girls, foul language from the "Bad Boy" crowd, and smooches from the "Perfect" couples that have it all figured out.
An obsession
An addiction.
It tortures me,
but I need it.
I got to know
the number on the scale.
Restrict my food.
Binge eat.
Purge.
Thoughts of laxatives.
I once was
A girl caged in lonliness; living nightmare
The devil on my back
Crawled in my head
Why does she stand alone?
Why does she shy away from those who care most?
Why is the damsel in distress, still in distress?
Why does she stand alone?
How often does she wish that she were someone else?
There we stood face to face
neither one daring to flinch
The mirror howling
screaming in agony
its cries growing more and more and even more intense
Sleeping is something that is supposed to be beautiful,
Cheerished and just about as intimate as sex.
With actions that spread through dreams and into the imagination
Sleeping has become the enemy,
The mind is extraordinarily intricatecomplex senses yield emotions that are delicate
The Altar is not far
Around the corner from
A Bedroom. Hers to be precise.
She goes
Resolve building like a wall
And as she kneeled
Before her God
She felt the Bar
I was only ten when I became anorexic.I was starving myselfin order to become plastic.Now I am strong, but I look around to seePeople trying to tell memy lack of beauty.
She was a poet
Like no other
Her pencil wrote
A simple letter
If she's rough
The paper tears
A moan escapes
Of self aware
A gruesome dream
Filled with tears
Time is none
I am left with no words when the mirror yells back
All of my faults.
All in one frame
Out on the streets, I run by many things
I run by the cars in their rush
By jagged cracks in the concrete
By hills of strength and downhills of bliss
My feet propel me foward
A delicious taste
eaten with such a haste
"thow it up," my stomach says
No, it would make a mess
FOOD FOOD FOOD
Every ravenous soul cries for
What is food at all?
Is it Satisfaction...?
Or a remedy to survival...think about it -
I see food as Cruel, Enemy, Evil, Vicious...
This isn't something you ask for,
This wasn't something I chose
For the monster that tricked me,
Was as alluring as a rose.
I didn't realize my portions,
Began to drastically shrink,
It is not enough to paint them
A sunny shade of yellow.
Covering these walls will not
Hide the damage and the rot.
These walls confine me
They define me
And they keep the others far away.
Dear Soceity,
You need to stop with these lessons,
Where young girls are forced to see
How imperfect their bodies can be.
How sex is a tool for sucess,
How breasts are ment for something so much less.
In our model shows the women are thin,
Middle and high school girls not comfortable in their skin
They'd rather be hungry than gain weight,
let us stop the hate.
today marks the day that my mistakes make me bleed.
i know, i know, the confessions feed.
this pressure makes me fear the world
"be pretty, nails painted, hair curled"
"What is it that you don't like?"
The words that haunt my every thought
Longing to rush along my lips
and spill out
Filling in the crevaces of the space around me
Words
What do they mean
She looks up from the porcelain sink to see the reflection of a girl. Her face is drained of color and her lips tremble.
It always lurked inside, but had evolved from
a small, superficial presence into
a Fog that glowed beautifully and dangerously
as the source of one's existence.
Fresh air that's inhaled is produced into
My anger pours out as I scream for some release.
I want to be gone and away from this beast.
Nothing I say is ever enough for you.
I cannot be content as long as I'm being used.
Set me free I repeatedly scream.
Mocking mirrors here and therealways relishing my despair.Never ceasing in their testimonyuntil I miraculously become bony.
Walls, built sturdy and tall.Doors, built to let people in.These walls make a tower, I threw away the key.All in an effort, to keep you from me.
Scared, broken and limpI watch Megan bend over the toilet bowl chokingThis isn’t the first, second, or third timeAnd it sure won’t be the last.
i'm rolling fast down a steep hill.
you know what they say about old habits.
they'll eat you from the inside out
unless you eat yourself first.
but what happens
when you throw yourself back up?
I fist fought a girl named Ana,A battle to the death-And when she pushed me to the groundShe knocked me out of breath.She pulled out my hair in pieces,She bruised my fragile bones,
Ana was the new girl in town
She was never seen with a frown
Ana never had a flaw
standing so thin and tall
Being friends with Ana isnt as great as it seems
Once you find out all her dirty schemes
Fond memories, led astray
No glimpse of hope, such disarray
Scornful judgment brings out a beast, so tame
Blinded by its fear, naught bravery remain
Tearing at the wounds that reject
The doctors continuously rave
about the improvement
I have supposedley made
but somewhere deep down inside
I am aware that
in the end I cant be saved.
To them
I have only been
It is not that I love death more,
but that I love myself less.
This eating disorder is becoming a chore.
It is something lodged in my chest.
It's not that I love food less,
When I was in 7th grade, I was diagnosed with that Ana disease.Underweight by 20 lbs.
I had no faith, I didn't know who I was.Just a little girl trying to have fun.
Seeing things in different ways,
is giving life a perspective.
You don't have to be blind,
if you can't see them..
Maybe you just couldn't find the right perspective?
Questions last forever,
but lying by answering doesn't...
135 pounds?!
There's no such thing as having an eating disorder when you're so fat
Eating disorders are for the skinny people
For my friend, who is 105 pounds and eats whatever she wants
Shes controled by a skinny waist, a empty stomach and an acid taste. Sit back and watch closly, as that beautiful soul goes to waste. Keep up with the fast pase, another skipped lunch and a hunch to move paranoia in it's place.
All you need is some nice tits and a great ass,
Some illegal drugs and an eating disorder,
That’ll make up for your lack of sass.
So now let’s face this,
America will always be racist.
Cold. I am always cold,
and lonely, and sad, and never
alone.
I feel him on my back like a weight,
and if I drop a few more ounces, I can
escape,
Right? He’ll be gone, and I can eat
Stuff it down your throat
Bloating pompous wreck, your nature is destroyed
The starving cries call you
You spit it out in disgust
Your eyes roam free, enveloping the sick twist
Suffering is beautiful
So watch me fade away.
We’ll play a game together,
You and I,
I’ll disappear and
You try to save me
From drifting through the sieve of life,
My sickness feels like home,
Falling farther every day into a
Pattern of decay and
Watching myself ache this way
I’m getting sicker every day.
Without my release
I feel I’ll never sleep,
You are beautiful
but you taste of death
the smell of stomach acid
forever staining your breath
Your hands are shaking
your stomach, aching
but you won't stop
until you reach perfection
I woke up this morning with a smile on my face
I love being able to tell myself it'll be okay
Even though last night was nothing but a mess
I was able to wake up this morning with no stress
Chains
Chains
clinking metal frozen
wrists bound
reaching for freedom
no key to set me free
or strength to uncuff
Why must you try to make yourself this way
For you don't see you're beautiful in your own way
Why must you try to be someone your not
Why must you try to look like a fake
You are beautiful in your own way
Miss America - petty thoughts
What you see is what you get?
Hardly.
Will you live up to their expectations?
Barely.
How many times will you cry yourself to sleep?
Constantly.
Every inch of exposed flesh
Distorted by the image in the mirror
Can't you see you are perfect?
Can't you see you don't need this?
All you see is baggage
All I see are bones
Come to me, my love
If you took a good, long, hard look at her stomach, what would you see? Don't look at the skin of her stomach which she mistakes for fat.
Magazines and photo clips
Stringy arms and collar bones
Thigh gaps and a flat stomach
Trigger.
Skipped meals and laxatives
Diet pills and exercises
All to look lovely for people
Inside, they consume me
the words of society
filled with rejection
My heart aches and throbs
as I'm wrapped in the image
of pure pefection
Yet I can not grasp
I step on the scale
Feel the glass beneath my feet
One hundred and ten pounds
That's still too much for me
I'm trying so hard to fight this
And the battle is not yet lost
porlecian comfort on a late saturday night
while everyone’s body warmth melts away the chills
of a day that brought on layers.
I lay on tiles that have seen better days.
I want to see every detail of my body
Health class
Reading my life
Only a paragraph
Pages upon pages of each topic
Eating Disorders: a paragraph
Why
Why am I ignored?
My life condensed into those few lines
I didn't really think I was fat at first
Because at first I was getting healthy
Then my heart was stolen and smashed
And I realized I was no one if I couldn't be thin
The weakest thing I could do was to eat
the man was thick and dark of hair
his eyes deep red with bright white glare
his shoes impeccable, his style sleek
he walked up to a girl and made no sound, no creak
his voice was slick
I’ve become friends
With a girl
Whose name
I dare not say.
I hide her
Behind lies,
Tears
And the pleading
Of my enemy.
She makes me
Do things
I didn’t think
She's back you know-
making the wallflower's feel...
pretty
but, they'll soon realize her lies
and the pain she puts them through,
only makes her stronger.
The people upstairs knowthey knowthey have toI don’t want them to hearbut how could they miss my feet like spiderweb surgeryspinning on the silhouettes of other girlsprettierskinnier
If I could, I would fast instead,
but these concoctions of God, wasted
among those with less voracity.
Count the calories, count the pounds,
the less you have the smaller you are.
Collarbones, tiny waist,
beauty is deeper than just your flesh.
Struggling with yourself,
fighting the demons in your mind.
The bones they scream in volumes that grow
I hear them begging to show
They want to press pass the barriers
They want me to learn “no”
It scares me as much as it thrills me
To take it all in and see
She looks at he reflection,
and urges herself to take back what she consumed.
She damns what's in front of her,
and leaves the feast alone.
The little she ingest,
the more difficult for her to
Perfection is a sickness
a doubt,
a bind,
a fiend.
Swimming toward perfection,
she ends up drowning for desire, life on the line.
Perfection is an identity,
a dream,
a wish,
All my life I looked for a way out
Walking through the darkness
Hearing the different voices telling me which way to go
Walking in every direction, trying to find the right path
Just one more
one more bite
Just one more
one more bite
and one more
and one more
NO more
Stop it! I can't hold anymore!
Let me be!
Dark hair
Frames her angular face
Protruding cheekbones
Paperwhite skin hiding lacy blue veins
Dark eyes
Follow me around the room
Judging me
Looking at me
Wanting to be me
Memories of bright days flow out of my head and drip to the floor
Into a liquid blob of obscure, lifeless, dark figures.
Color. Happiness. Sanity. Personality. Life.
A fountain of fear
Followed by a tear
As the lever goes down
And all of the evidence goes around
And around and around
Soon it disappears from sight
But only until the next fight
She's made of glass, but no one knows
Her smile is fragile. It comes and goes
Never good enough, oh mirror on the wall
When will she crack? She can't please them all.
In a box,
But not with my mind,
It got out.
Now, I can't find,
Sanity.
Anywhere.
And I can't see,
Yet I stare,
At the body,
Left behind.
Where is my soul?
I'm just dying
To be perfect.
Whatever it takes,
Will be worth it.
Can I please,
Be enough for you?
I'm stumbling, trying,
To make it through.
And pleasing everyone,
I could tell you a secret,
But it's locked inside.
I could dig in and reach it,
If I dismantled my pride.
I really want to tell you,
But you're in a different state of mind.
Acting,
Like I'm up on a stage.
Memorized the lines
On every page.
And the girl,
The one that I play,
She's the one That'd you'd like,
And see every day.
But underneath the surface,
A feeling of powerlessness gave me frustration
I felt that I could not meet one expectation
This helpless sensation
Demanded compensation
And somehow starvation
Gave me liberation
Going to an all girl school, hormones run ramped.
Tumblr posts of the pretties with their thigh gaps wider than frail fists,
Rib shots of carved out ravines forming valleys down your sides,
Stupid
Ugly
Fat
Imperfect
These are the words used to describe people
In society
Always comparing one’s self to
Models and actors
Never tall or thin enough
Rip your throbbing hands straight through my rib cage
Heart break;
Wrap an arm around my waist
Knees quake.
Skeleton dreaming as though it matters
Anorexia;
They call it a disorder
I cannot eat.
And my bones are starting to peer through my skin
so that they can show the world
that I cannot eat.
The aroma of a meal so fine floats through my nostrils
and my stomach curls in on itself
Bulimia nervosa,
Or so they call it. I wouldn’t say I was too nervous about it;
Actually I was quite disgusted both physically and mentally.
It’s a disorder but I don’t think I have a disorder.
Torn between two worlds
My head and reality.
In one I keep myself hidden
In another I can't escape.
My own imagination
My own worst enemy
Fighting to escape
This world I have created
I heard your screams
And I chose to ignore them
I regret that decision with my life
I saw the skipped meals
The retching in the bathroom
The regret cuts me like a knife
what was i supposed to do?
Your body is your vessel
It will travel miles farther than where your head has taken you
It is your storage unit
A unique container of your individual world
I turn skeletons into goddesses, I fill my self wth caffeine and nicotine. Destroying myself with every hour, no food passes these lips, wasting away with every passing day.
Slowly her size dropped, her grades went with it. Not wanting to take up space, she starved away, day by day.
On the runway she seems perfect, on the pages of magazines she's perfect. She seems so happy, so pretty. To herself she is nothing till she is skin and bones.
Ana calls my name, she says not to eat, "don't you want control." Mia calls my name ,she says eat it all, wait you fatty throw it up, "you'll get fat with all those calories inside you." I call to myself, what do I say, "you are beautiful."
To the lost, the forgotten, the outcasts, to all those who feel hopeless and alone. This cruel, sick, and twisted world you live in has made you think the unthinkable and speak the unspeakable.
She may be young
But her story is one to be heard
You can listen all you want
But you won’t know it well
Until you have seen her feet
To question the validity of my teachers through the years
Is to question the following lessons I hear:
There was one to crush my dreams
And one to learn I won't make teams
Your reflection in the mirror makes you shudder
"I'm happy with my body" are words you'd never utter
100 calories seems to be enough for today
Any more, and your weight would pay
You burn double of what you eat
Yeah, here's my life. I welcome you to it. Welcome to huge secrets pouring out my mouth because of two thick, pale fingers. Welcome to black blood drippin impurities all over my mother's untouched rugs.
I need your hand.
Let me grasp it, firmly.
I must hold on, tightly-
Else, I may slip.
Fall, let me not.
Not again, not now.
Quickly, I beg, give me a hand.
Pull me up, out away.
I step into
The hallway.
It's blurry.
One more step.
Each step takes so much
Effort.
There are no other bodies
But mine.
Everything is a hazy
Cream color.
Except the lights.
You sit across the way and stare at me
as I fight my temptation to give in.
Fulfilling my yearns and granting each plea,
you make me feel so great, it must be sin.
You give the contents to fill what I lack,
One too many
Two too many
Three too many
Stop
As she stared into the glass mirror seeing nothing but a worthless reflection
One too many
Two too many
Is three too many?
Stop
Living in today's world
is like getting your ice cream swirled
everyone's too close together
I can't hear myself over this mindless chatter
Trying to be as skinny as a stick
Can’t Keep Anything DownEven though this thick saccharine bileIs missing its acidity
I sit in silence at the table,
I wait to hear your lecture bable.
you tell me all I need to consume,
You know all I can think of are caloires too.
Apple -100 Calories
Cracker - 17 Calories
When people see me they only see the bad half of me. Nothing but a one sided figure and anorexic bones. Starving myself because I feel fat and think I'm overweight, Dieting cause whenI eat I'm trying to find an escape.
When people see me they only see the bad half of me. Nothing but a one sided figure and anorexic bones. Starving myself because I feel fat and think I'm overweight, Dieting cause whenI eat I'm trying to find an escape.
You keep slipping away.
Stuck between calories and you.
I want to whi-SCREAM-sper that I love you,
But I can't if you can't love yourself,
how can you love me?
NO MORE.
She steps inside
a world unkown.
The place is dark
and stars don't glow.
She starts to cry--
she wonders why--
she thinks she cannot
be fulfilled
with just her dreams.
I find myself here
Collapsed in the bathroom floor
Pressed against porcelain
Terrified of the consequences of what I have done
Temptation so strong and my will so weak
I find myself on my knees
We're so Starving.
Looking in the mirror, mistaking what we see for what we believe
Knowing the media makes billions of off billions of insecurities.
Humans on their knees, ashamed to feed
Walking, breathing, beating
Yes I'm alive.
You Think not of me,
I think of what could be.
Coincide the thoughts and fears of reaching out,
It only makes me feel I need to shout.
My passion is Perfection.
Blacken the Eye
Restrict the waist
Restrain the thigh
Don’t dally over taste
Slim Fast the ads scream out
They told her
Not to cry-
As if tears were anything more than
A lifeless bit of memory-
And sent her away.
Eight years later,
The sun still rose and
Her heart still beat to the same
Ribcage
Open your ribcage
To try and see the thing inside
That threatens to drag you under
The hunger causes it
It eats away at you
Gives you dead eyes
And fuzzy thoughts
This battle is hidden.
My struggle doesnt show.
Stopping is forbidden.
No one will ever know.
The fight is forever.
Ill try to stay strong.
The darkness is clever.
It makes you feel wrong.
Given to this girl,
A journey unwelcomed---
Branches claw while she struggles
To eat the food placed before her.
Darkness surrounds, pecking at her soul
While staring into the deep white porcelain bowl
All this suffering - it makes no sense
How one could live through such nonsense.
Minute by minute, the pain increases
As it rips through her veins like shards and pieces.
The loons call in the night,
spreading my heart open.
Scarred feet slide across the tile floor,
slipping away in her nightgown.
Down the newly wet grass gateway,
advancing into the shocking water.
I am done not being done
I lost it all, the fat is gone
I tried, I really tried
Then, I had a moment with the mirror, it all came back
As a girl I used to eat like a bike lacking breaks
I can smell it.
It makes my stomach
growl, yet churn.
My mouth begins to water,
as I take in the scent.
I refuse it,
the urge to taste.
I have the strength.
I will reach my goal.
Before recovery, when ED talked i listened. HE said i was lazy, i ran. HE said i was fat, i dieted. HE said i ate to much, i starved. HE told me to purge, i vomited. When ED was with me i cried.
I couldn’t tell you when it started.
Maybe it was all the SlimFast commercials
that interrupted my cartoons every Saturday morning.
Cages made of fear - called love.Tears shed for what was never lost - for what was found.
Love is imprisoned - with your hand on the key.And not even knowing it.
I get angry at my body for what's living in my headif I could flee my form I'd do it, and live in my soul insteadmy body has its wants, but my soul has its needs,and what my body wants leaves my disgusted soul to bleed
Today I met a great new friend
Who knew me right away.
It was funny how she understood
All I had to say.
She listened to my problems,
She listened to my dreams.
Why is it so hard for people to see
That all I want is a thinner me
Tons of weight I need to lose
It's my life and I'll do what I choose
Delicious foods I will not eat
Exercising on my bleeding feet
Your words taste like caramel in my mouth.
But words of wisdom do not exist.
Those who think the dangerous thoughts
That if,
Dribbled out,
Would indeed disturb the universe
Against the floor my body feels cool. The flesh along my abdomen stinginglike salt on open wounds. The walls of my stomach are simmering over a gas burner,
their content boiling over.
I cannot stop
It comes out of the bag
Rushes up against gravity
Through the tunnel,
Leaving the wrong hole
Shattered and destroyed with different substances
Damaging everything that it touches
You're the desert that's been saved for the end.
You're the girl whose will won't bend.
You're the girl with a huge heart,
Who people will look at and want to be apart.
You're a blessing that's yet to give,
A grim reflection
of skin and bones
Tearing her apart
with self-hatred
Magazines
covered with beauty
She only wishes
she could be like them
The mirror
tells her lies
It was so easy at first.
Like a moth to the flame.
I was an innocent victum.
And you a harmless game.
Just skip one,
it can't hurt?
After all, what's the worst?
Nobody can see the damage,
For all my young and old people out there
there is hope there is light outside. I am not affraid to say
i too faced Ed. At first i saw him as a best friend and not to long after
Come one, come all
please stand and cheer
Watch this young girl
face her biggest fear
She'll feel lonely and abandoned,
she'll be hurt and cry
But oh no, don't help
A mind held captive in
an infinite abyss
of
self-hatred and doubt
in the impossible
possibility
of lovely
perfection
frantically grasping
for a shred of hope
I opened my eyes in the morning
The idea of waking weighed them down
Then I fought until they stayed
And I decided to let everything
That was bad be good
The bed in which I lay
The friend I love has made a mistake
The demon inside manifests
Despite her will and her protests
The voice inside has made her break
She has let it overtake
No emotion can she express
There was a habit once kicked, it was nasty and it was gone. Three years of it controlling a life, three years of a voice, a nag, something that had all the control yet none at all.
Bulimia A woman in blackStumbles into the night,Bright-eyed, ravenousLooking for the world To glide down her once forbidden throat Open the tunnelHere comes the trainNo one noticedThat it U-turned aroundRun right quickMake it rain overA porcelain
It used to be outdoors,
now someone brought it inside.
Dying slowly without freedom,
welting and thin,
the stringiness is a bad sign.
Normalcy was the chaos.
Each day passing with the hopes for happiness and cheer at dawn
And the cries and disappointed faces at dusk.
Person infront of person speak of nothing or speaking of everything in vain
counting calories on a boxI know I look like a foxpinching skin calling it fatconstantly hearing " I like that."snapping rubber bands to fight the hungerI know I can control this for much longer
What must I do to keep this hunger inside of me?
It’s like a black hole, dark, dense, spinning, sucking, pulling,
A Never escaping nightmare.
I grab my stomach and it growls at my hand.
There is no cure, no acceptance, no understanding, and no answer. Textbooks can only tell you so much, and unless you have lived it, it is near impossible to judge from the outside.
No longer is there a selfOr even a persona you could call someone elseIf there was ever a true selfHe died long ago.So the masked figure you see before youBroadcasts lack of identityRefusing weakness,
Starving my body, starving my soulI cannot tell what is my goalEat that today, eat nothing tomorrowMy mother's scale I might have to borrowCheck my weight, look towards the groundOh my God, I gained a pound
They didn't care.
Why should I?
I was lost in fair .
I remain the same.
Oh it came to soon
as the wolf howls at the moon.
Mother was displeased
as it goes for my nees ther're broken down.
A year of healing and of grace
Of reconstructing a new face
And seeing color after years
Of grey scale muted by my tears
She sits in her room, alone. Blood is falling from her arm, she doesn't see what she has in her. If I could, I would make her stop, I would say all that I could so that she wouldn't hurt.
I drape over her body:shrunkencoldsevere.The cavernous spaces,like trenchesrunning downthe sides,welcome me tofilltheir voids.Like snow,I blanket her geography.
When I look in the mirror I see me.
I see all I want to be.
When she looks in the mirror she wants to see me.
She's a thin crack of a girl
She's been used and abused by the world
So she hurls.
Her jutting ribs are the fingerprints of abuse
As the mirrors lie the sound of the closing fridge is her muse
She pushes her thoughts away as hard as she can
but the scale never moves, what a sin
My skin hangs weightlessly off my bones,
like an old shirt on a clothes hanger.
My stomach feels no hunger,
it no longer knows what hunger is.
I want to be weightless. To be able to float up to the clouds. To run my hands through the soft, pale cotton, and dance among the birds.
I'm hungry.
But who really cares, because
these leggings don't fit.
My head hurts.
And you can't take pills
on an empty stomach.
The world feels fuzzy.
I wish I had the power
Shattered mirrors frame the walls of empty thoughts in broken hallsAll I wanted was some piece of mindsome silence in this wretched time
E’erlasting Winter in Heaven subsides,
When Fated birds a Chapter newly sing.
A tune of Beauty which rare Hope provides,
and might from Cloth of Time a Springtime wring.
My mother tells me she used to believe in
abortion. Said her body wasn't ready to
cradle stretch marks that would tuck into her.
She is addicted to alignment. Thinks the arcs
I don't know why or even how
She crept into my life.
I don't even remember how I felt
Before i kissed her.
All I know is this our tiring, little dance,
Our routined repertoire,
I wish I could tame the beast inside me,
The rapping tapping that holds on to me,
My flesh turns to gold,
And my mouth runs dry,
I turn into a beast that doesn’t recognize the inside,
The clothes we wear. The whispers we hear. Takes the actions . Nobody is perfect yet in our mind we want to try. We chose to eat words instead. Words that eats all the joy in a person; fat, ugly, oversized.
I never knew that there were ways to express myself out loud.
Always bottling up emotions, ready to explode.
Soon, I began to write.
I released emotions that had been suppressed for too long.
Can you feel me barely breathing?
Upon your arm; incessant beating
A lonely heart inside my chest
Slowing only to be put to rest.
No one knows I haven’t eaten in weeks; I try my best to act normal; Within this sickness, I have reached my peak; Just waiting for my turn to fall; Sometimes its not so easy to hide; And some begin to get suspicious; But I will continue to push al
Salsa, jalapenos, and cheese dips
Are grossly consumed in large quantities
Many munching, crunching, snacking with smacking lips
One glare sent this way
To signal off bystanders a sign screaming be wary
Skipping meals to get thinner than the pill I'm ingesting.
Pills I'm ingesting to prevent dry heaving are the only thing I swallow cause it's nothing like eating.
Once your skinny they can tell you how fat you used to be.
Weak.
Shaking.
Shivering.
Aching.
The torment brings peace,
to an overly troubled mind.
In this chaos, there is
Release.
Comfort.
Fragility.
Beauty.
And complete destruction.
Ana and Mia
Sitting in a tree
And what do you know
Along comes Me
They trick my mind
So I see them as beautiful
And who would’ve thought
I began to fall in love
I fall fast
All day at school
Feeling Alone
No one to talk to
Friend? I had not one
I was depressed
Cuts on my arm
I'm not good enough
These thoughts causing harm
Corridors of the mind, a haven indeed
Waves of water, crashing like cries, like murmurs recede
Tiny fingers like insects’ feet, graze along the eyes
Drag against the cloth, the switch turns on, she pries,
With so many ways to look like a beauty,
I don't mind to treat my body with cruelty.
To most of you, I'll look grim.
But I'll just be pale and thin.
I can just stick my finger down my throat.
I'm trying I'm trying
I swear that I am
But my life is in pieces
I don't give a damn
Yes I know it's unhealthy
Yes I know I could die
I'm told that I'm pretty
But that last one's a lie
Mirrors and mind contort what I see,
Skinny and thin is what I must be;
86 pounds just isn’t enough,
Starving myself is going to be tough.
THE DUSK
My body begs for me to stop.
I will not listen. I will not give in.
The Voice forbids it.
It's true, less really is more.
I cry. Eyes like a troubled sea.
But I swear I'm fine.
Take care,
Here, take mine
I could afford to misplace it for the now.
Tick tock,
Youth is slipping over mind and through matter
Evaporating and subliming to form the stars on your palm
alone
strictly practiced
discipline on cold tile
unforgiving
begin
swelling
rushing water
a raging orchestra
filling the tub
distract
The pictures of the Holocaust,
Ghastly and unyielding,
Show starving people in their camps,
Terrible and unfeeling.
So depressed they feel no emotion.
So hungry they cannot eat.
The fall of eighth grade the leaves
changed their glorious colors
and I was diagnosed with overwhelming loneliness.
(poems go here) The fall of eighth grade the leaves
changed their glorious colors
and I was diagnosed with overwhelming loneliness.
It is cold here,
but my throat burns with anguish and self-hatred.
My body failed more than it was appreciated.
A beautiful, red ribbon holds me to the ground.
“Them”,” us”. “Us”, “we”.
By “them” I mean “us”, and by “us” I mean me.
But I also mean “them”.
Them, us. We, me.
The mentally ill that we be.
That voice in my head
The devil that clings to my back,
Tells me I'm not good enough.
Not pretty.
Not skinny.
Just not enough.
I listen to this voice
As it draws me away from my true self.
Thinspration
is quiet desperation.
It carves out
your pride
your love
yourself.
Your confidence
is left
next to
your failing
kidneys
and lost
hair.
Your pale complexion; white and gray,
I pray that you’ll live through another May.
The hair on your head is growing thin,
And I can’t find any more fat on your chin.
It pains me to know that this is your choice;
Skin grows paler
translucent, thin
no longer a barrier
nothing to hide whats within.
Razors are friends
try to bleed out the pain
never cutting deep enough
though nothing remains.
Her mirror belongs in a carnival, a wrong distorted image of what she looks like.
She'll try to bend herself to make that reflection look perfect.
Cut down what is eaten until it resembles the remnants of a forest.
What have I done?
All that means nothing is gone now
and leaves me exposed to realities
I cannot handle
Realities that lie in my dream world
Realities that I've tried to cover
with distractions
Their hands steal time.
I'm barely aware
Half in this world and half in the next,
A ghost with a beating heart.
Why do the hollows of your face catch the light?
My legs are like rivers
they flow forever
My eyes are like valleys
you can get lost in them
My fingers are like branches
long and slender
My hair is like grass
tender but strong
I see you tremble at the sight of me--
A metamorphosis in human form.
Behold! An atrophy, you do declare?
Physical decadence--irrational.
Thou may strongly believe I am troubled;
Looking at her plate
Glancing at her thighs
No thanks, she says
Waiting to be perfect, or what she thinks is perfect.
Fat, Skinny,
Anorexic
Have we learned that these words mean nothing?
Just merely a label to put on someone for the time being
"You are not good enough. Lose weight and he
will love you and not his new girl. If you
looked like that perfect girl over there, no
one would dare to say to you, 'We are through.'"
Fingers over faith
fingers over my safety
fingers over my health
This wasn't always the case
but things changed
I now find myself depending on my fingers
That's the wrong decision I made
It’s the shriek that wakes me.
A piercing, horrifying shriek that invades my peace
Like an unconcerned army marching blindly under the control of unknown generals,
A slimy metal can containing endless possibilities,
A catalyst for the family to show off their cooking abilities,
It was the key Ingredient to all my family recipes,
And to all the fish and meat we ate I say rest in peace,
Her scars were fading out.
The red lines in her skin disappearing.
Her skirts never came out,
and her hoodies were worn in the summer.
Bracelets hugged her wrists
and no one thought to check.
In the mirror,
She can see,
A thousand flaws,
A million mistakes,
A few things right,
She seems so sweet,
Her heart is cold,
Her mind is weak,
She has a curse,
Behind her pastel skin,
I force down another bite
Pack on another pound
My friends push me to the edge
“You’re pretty, but much to skinny.”
So I eat and eat and eat
Not because I’m hungry
But ashamed of what I’ve become
Hook x2
Chili Cheese hot cheetos,
Pickles dipped in kool aid,
Now laters, snicker bars, every single school day,
Feed em poison, kill them folks the slow way.
Count.
Count every calorie.
Count every step.
Count down the minutes until your alone.
Count the pounds you lost.
Hate.
Hate yourself for eating.
Hate the food.
Hate the way you look.
Colors fade away
from an image of long-ago nowhere.
They called her a whale
but she is not,
After all hippopotamus are cooler
just look at the teeth.
Not a leek in her hands
My individuality is
Locked in a little box.
My insane attempts to maintain a higher status-quo
Shoot me and throw me down a fiery hole.
What the heck am I saying?!
I’m surrounded by family and central heating in
Bright blue eyes with a smile so wide
Amazingly, she doesn't breakdown although she's dying inside
Quiet and shy, she's staying stronger than ever
Please help her open up before her feelings disappear forever.
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall.
Make me pretty, thin, and tall.
Who is fairest of us all?
When will Beauty finally fall?
Paint my face and Dye my hair,
Then will someone truly care?
A boy
Could have been a girl
Walked among the moon
Wondering where the stars were
The glittering light above
Teased him so
pulling out my hair
drowning in despair
Cinderella made me believe in happily ever after
and driving into the sunset chased by laughter
even though her prince left her
because of the baby weight
Don't give up, my darling
With your shriveled bones,
Broken skin,
By razors touch
You are dancing with fairies
But don't you know?
They have not yet
Shown their teeth.
The Mirror
Looking in the mirror and what do I see?
A girl with a pretty face, but an ugly body
This girl is fat with ugly thighs
She has no self-esteem so she often cries
Sometimes I think
I have two ghosts inside of me.
Regret and hate, self hate, haunt the dark.
And the smile, is a mask
For my light.
Sometimes I see her
The light inside of me but
The skeleton
This wasn't something I asked for this wasn't something I Chose
The monster that tricked me looked as beautiful as a rose
I didn't realize my portions
and how they began to shirk
Shower after dinner, napkin full of food.
You don’t see anything, unless I shout it at you.
No one sees the scars from waist to knuckle,
but as I continue retching, my knees begin to buckle.
Dark, dreary, detached
Consumed by my own shell.
Mind spacing, heart racing,
As I try to release from this Hell.
Food.
Necessary for life and ooh it tastes so good, but what about the safety net it creates?
The bond it forms with you, saying "I'll protect you from the hate.
When you're struggling and down, it's me that'll pull you up,
She’s perfectly perfect
Skinny enough
But she doesn’t see
that reflection in the mirror.
Everything wrong.
The feeling of imperfection
ever lasting.
Starvation forces numbers down
The darkness is my long lost friend
A cover of black replacing the light
There to greet me at the day’s end
My consciousness losing all sight
The moon, my muse, my influence
Overtaking the rays of sun
Beauty strutting down the runway
Coated in a perfectly manufactured façade
Never truly understanding beauty
Lady lazarus kissed me on the forehead
Never again will I cry because
She stole my heart and embroidered
It with diamonds and emeralds
Who will i be when I learn to fly?
His hollow black eyes whisper lethal,
but he sure knows how to weave grace into a dull ribcage.
His secrets of elegance deter one from the uncertainties of existence.
There I stare blank and bare where oh where am I?
At the door the say once more whats on the other side
Dragons dungeons or hollow ovens
what oh what i sigh?
food is the enemy
but people say to
keep your friends close
and your enemies closer
my plate before me
filled with food
almost feel a twinge of
regret
almost
but not quite
Surrounded, trapped to be exact
No matter what way I turn, they're always there
Magazines, TV Commercials, Billboards...
You name it, they were there
Photographs
Had a loving family,just a little kid with a mom and dad, how were we to know everything would change, 7 is a lucky number, not here never here, the little kid met another father she never knew, started to get scared and choking on food, lossing w
Wheres all lifes mysteries gone away The way the beauty of death makes every thing okay
I sometimes conteplate the way i will i die Will someone try to save me, will they even try
Will i drown never to be fowned
Measuring, weighing, counting, craving
Ignoring the fact that you are dying
Why is there a need for trying
Behind the smile one is crying
Practically weightless, yet, it weighs on your shoulders.
You either have it or you don't.
You have enough or you don't
You're not addicted.. Yet, you need it.
(poems go here) Years ago,
I remember looking in the mirror.
I could smile
Make a quirky face
Laugh.
My clothes fit
I was happy
Now, I glare at my reflection
Blink
Try to unsee
You're not, The school girls said. Maybe you should lay off the chips, The boyfriend said.
you are more than the dust in the wind,
greater than the tears on your face,
braver than the lingering fear in your heart,
more beautiful than the sigh inside your soul.
you are more, beloved,
Days seem like ages
when minutes turn into hours.
How long this stage is,
only decisions will tell.
Lost in the world
and waiting for the pages
of Life's book to reveal
An old man whistles, woosh, whoosh, whee-whoosh, wooooo
Long, green fingers dancing and mocking me
Laughing with their round, hairy companions
Plastic thongs and sun-kissed limbs strut in front
I don’t know when it all started.
And I didn’t know it started with a lie.
But what I do know,
Is that my best friend, Ana, controls my life.
you try to stroke the bowl of my belly, it's not romantic & sends the sea swimming my muddy eyes a flood.
She can’t remember when it all started,
The day she became insecure.
She used to be so confident,
The one they all adored.
She started looking around at all the other girls,
Comparing herself to them.
(poems go here) I am one of those
Stick thin girls.
I am also a girl
With self-image problems.
Small, skinny girls can
Have problems too.
Not all of us work out
And eat little
It’s tiring, waking up in the morning with a monster eating you up
controlling you. killing you slowly
While you sit there and stare at your breakfast
and realize that you should eat
The fear of life
The fear of the one that I might wife
The fear of death
For all the years I have left
You hold my tired hand
Your bright eyes crinkle into that widespread smile
Your thumb traces the tired lines of my palm
I do not know what our future holds
After all, we're seventeen
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Who's the fairest of them all?
She who's tall and she who's thin,
She who gets a workout in
She whose thighs are far apart,
She who has an ice cold heart.
You know that thing?
The thing that nobody talks about?
Making yourself puke?
Yeah
I do that
It hurts
It burns
It destroys your teeth
But what they forget to tell you
In health class
Recovery Is Possible
That's what they keep telling me
I don't know how to believe it
When I've had this eating disorder
For almost a decade
But I know
I'm sick of it
I'm sick of the being sick
That's what someone called me yesterday
I was just walking
Alone
In the hallway at school
And the girl
The blonde one
With the long, slender legs
And the flat stomach
Ana
Anorexia
Anorexia nervosa
Ana
My friend
My best, closest friend
You're there for me
When I need you
You whip me into shape
You love me
I can tell you do
The thing about ED is
He never leaves you
Through the good
The bad
The ugly
He's there
A little wasp
Following you around
Stinging you
Every time you reach out
Stealthily weighing, critically searching
My mere presence is riddled with flaws.
For such absurd behavior, people wonder
What is the cause?
the whispers in my ears
are my deepest darkest fears
she yells but soothes
always with bad news
"you gained since yesterday"
every morning i hear her say
she forces me to stop
I. On Tuesdays,she lingered in the coffeehouse.
A gossamer draped lightly from her shoulder,
slender fingers clutched a tawny mug.
Absentmindedly, she browsed the newspaper.
I glanced in her direction furtively and
Digging dirt from beneath my nails,
Digging dirt ditches,
Bringing up dirt in pails.
Dirt crusts me over.
My bright sweet shine,
Dirt,
It covers.
Who started this trickery?
This ever shrinking waist
There is no debate
That skin and bones is not why men fantasize
But you say and you starve
Perfection is what you are aiming for
Clothes in the front
What a beautiful girl, with so much she embraced She had dreams & goals beyond both time & space Beautiful girl, she begins her foggy view Self-hatred & sadness is something new Her life is now filled with fear & despair She begins
From collar bones to skinny wrists
She tries to joke, impress with her wits
Thigh gaps, stomach flat
Through her eyes she see nothing but fat
It becomes a game, how far will she go?
