Dear Brother

 

We sit together and eat dinner

You sit there with your large plate, a mountain of food with meats galore

contrasting my small porcelain plate with baby-sized morsels of food

 

You eat like a king

And I starve like a peasant

 

You sit there and stare

You open that big fat mouth of yours and tell me to eat more

 

Eat more

 

Why

I'm perfectly fine I answer with a half smile, 

Trying so hard so that it doesn't falter 

Trying so hard that a tear doesn't slip, so that my facade doesn't slip

I'm practically full I say as I'm half way done. But I know for a fact that I'm no where near full- that was barely my first meal of the day

 

You tell me how insane I am 

How you don't understand what I see when I look in a mirror

You yell at me telling me how weak I've become

Asking about where I went, realizing how little I've become

 

And I wish I could tell you of the never ending war that's gone on for too long

Of a madness that has ensued for as long as I can remember 

 

But brother you were taught to get bigger and I was taught to be thinner 

You could never understand why I could not eat anymore 

 

Not unless you understood what it was like to be patronized for being the 'biggest' of your friends, not knowing that it wasn't ok for a girl to eat whatever she wanted because god forbid if she was anything other than small

 

Brother you had a lovely childhood

Eating what you pleased unafraid to look at yourself naked in front of a mirror staring at the crevices of your body, pinching at each of your insecurities, knowing that you are not supposed to look the way you do

 

Not knowing that society is trying to suck the very life out of you, by

molding your mind to have a fixed perception of what beauty is

 

Brother, you were not fat shamed, humiliated by our cousins in front of your best friend and then 5 years later asked why you looked anorexic

 

And all I ask is for them to make up their fucking minds

 

Am I supposed to be skinny or fat?

 

But you didn't care for that

You just really wanted me back

 

You were beginning to meet my best friend the skeleton, each day he made his way out a little more, just to meet you

Meanwhile the demons in my head whispered to me about the beautiful things that I could be if I just stopped eating

 

I wish I could evaporate into nothingness and cease to exist from this body

This body that has brought me nothing but madness

As insane as I might sound I'm just looking for my own peace of mind

 

And I know you hear the symphonies of screams echoing inside the depths of my stomach 

as I lie in bed listening to them you feel for me and break a little too

 

I know that I am not who you wanted as a sister.

Not a sister who's more afraid of the numbers on a scale turning endlessly than she is of the horror movies that we play on  the TV

 

You must've forgotten about a time when I was more than this

When I was more than the numbers being constantly calculated in my head 

More than the empty placemats that signified that I would no longer be joining you for dinner

 

But I cannot promise you that I will get better. 

 

Sincerely the sickness that robbed you of a sister