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. 

I know it’s wrong, but I cannot escape a feeling so intense. 

The way that my two fingers penetrate my throat, 

the way my throat clenches in the absence of air. 

I am a sinner, forcing harm onto myself, but my body 

screams out of  necessity. A drug. An addiction. 

Sometimes I make myself vomit even when there is nothing to. 

Spit piles up in my mouth, I hate myself.

 

Mama once said 

Pretty girls are skinny girls. When I became skinny, 

I was told I was beautiful. Telling myself in between gags, 

that this, this is how it’s supposed to be. 

When the skinny girl gets skinner, it’s a disease

When the fat girl gets skinny, it’s a miracle

My mom said that she was proud of me. 

 

When people told me I was sick, I told them they didn’t 

know, 

know the difference between sick and struggling. 

Convinced of the notion that pretty people are skinny people. 

I look at my reflection in the clear toilet bowl water, 

I do not recognize the girl that stares back. 

She is broken, bare. 

Some may say that she is beautiful, 

She is skinny.