"Just Eat"

he says to his girlfriend of 5 years

who sits staring at her food at the dinner table 3 hours

after everyone else is done. He says

"You're embarrassing me. Just eat."

 

"Just Eat"

a mother says to her son

when he refuses to go to the family Thanksgiving because

there are too many calories in just one slice of turkey so he has to
cut it into fourths;

and as everyone stares his mother says

"You're embarrassing me. Just eat."

 

"Just Eat"

a girl says to her 13 year old sister

who spends every single lunch in the library,

sitting in the corner, a bag of bones with cuts and calluses on her knuckles;

when everyone asks where she is her sisters says

"You're embarrassing me. Just eat."

 

"You don't understand"

the girlfriend says to her boyfriend,

the son says to his mother,

the girl says to her sister,

"You don't understand."

they say to everyone

as they count the calories in one chicken leg

as they pass out at the gym because they've been running for 

6 hours straight

as they pop one more laxative late at night

because they can't stand the fact that they can feel the 

calories seeping into their body.

as they run to the bathroom in a panic because

they ingested more than 400 calories

and they feel like they can't breathe until they are empty again.

 

all because the only help they will receive from their loved ones are the words 

"Just eat."

 

Now when the boyfriend of 5 years sits next to his girlfriend,

He runs his fingers through her gray hair and when he pulls his hand out,

her hair comes with.

He tries to find who his girlfriend once was in the midst of all of the

numbers and self-hatred but all he can find is a

shrinking woman

who chased 50 pills with a bottle of jack just last week because she

just wanted to feel something.

 

Now when the mother sits next to her son lying in the hospital bed connected

to wires and probes because he needs help to breathe on his own,

she tries to hug him but he is just so small he

disappears in her arms.

She tries to find who her son once was in the whirlwind of

Desolation and compulsive counting

but all she can find is

a staircase of ribs and a line of vertabrae.

 

Now when the girl sits next to her 13 year old sister who was once filled with

joy and life but who now can't even 

find the energy to get out of bed in the morning

nor does she really even care to anymore,

She tries to find who her sister once was hidden under the

tears and hopelessness

but all she can find is

a shell of a girl who once was.

 

As the boyfriend, the mother, and the sister watch as

their loved ones lose their minds and turn into

hills of crumbling bones, they have to remember that all they could fucking say was 

"Just eat."

 

But now they're too late.

Because I bet now that the girlfriend, the son, and the sister are nothing

but decaying flesh six feet under 

no one is going to fucking tell them to

"Just eat."