It’s weird talking to young girls
Who don’t have eating disorders
I developed mine when I was twelve
And could never imagine being fourteen
And not caring how many calories
Is in the dinner I’m eating
You took me to dinner
We ate as we spoke
And my thank you
Was my fingers down my throat
On my way back
I walked the long way home
Then I stared in the mirror
Poking at my bloat
I only ran a bath to mask
The sound of me vomiting
It feels like forever
I’ve been promising
I’d stop all this silly stuff
I locked myself inside for years
Worried the world would see me
The way I saw myself
That people would look at my legs
My stomach. my cheeks, my chest
And wonder how I got so fat
I brush my teeth and go upstairs to bed
So I don’t have to eat dinner
I sleep with dreams of waking up
Thinner. I pick lunch from my gums
Swallow it, kicking stomach
First one down.
I watch TV, with beautiful women
In beautiful gowns, it’s a trigger
The scales drop but in the mirror
All I see is bigger and bigger
And bigger.
She told me she just loves food
It’s her favourite thing in the world
She cooks different meals
For the family, but mostly herself
Gloats about the calorie rich platefuls
She even laughs about it
I wear clothes to hide my figure
I chain smoke cigarettes and drink coffee
Like it’s Saturday night’s liquor
The only thing my tongue touched
Today is the Rizla
I waste away my wasting away hiding it.
I lose my losing myself, I blindside it
With finding little things to hate.
Things no one else sees.
Things no one else is allowed to.
He doesn’t care that he is obese
That he can’t breath going up stairs
He dances without any shame
He moves his body in its oceanic ways
He sleeps with whoever he pleases
Confident in his skin, always has been
I berate past appreciations
I’m embarrassed to have ever loved my smile
Now all I see around my mouth is
Creased skin.
Indents between my eyebrows from frowning.
Even when I’m afloat, I feel like I’m drowning.
She takes photos in her underwear
And shares pictures in her bikinis
Love handles look like elephant ears
And ankle bones hidden under fat
She looks gorgeous, glorious
And she agrees wholeheartedly
My weight fluctuates and it takes me back
To older days of monitering it twenty four times
In twenty four hours, praying to have shifted
Even a gram for gram’s sake
And if it would raise, it would only break
My weak heart all over again
I think back, and think shame
To have wasted so much time
Obsessed with the figure, obsessed with my figure
And I figure, what a lame hobby.
Begging for my thighs to part and create space
For knobbly knees, protruding collarbones
And fingers like lace.
Crying in the mirror, as all I saw was bigger
Than what I have ever really been.
She says she prefers herself heavier
When she was so skinny
She looked ill, emaciated, childish
She doesn’t know I’m jealous
Of the parts of herself that she hated
She loves the parts that now look like me
I would look at girls under a hundred pounds
And it would set off this covetous rage
Something I had never felt before
Angry at myself for being twenty more
And as I bled more regularly, I’d start binging
Fingers wet after every evening’s meal,
Snot streaming, heavy breathing
And sweat steaming.
Then I lost my flow, the only red that poured
Came from my wrists, it trickled, tickled
My elbows, danced to my thighs
and dropped to the carpet.
He has a podgy, padded beer gut
That he balances his pints on
He has thin legs but a double chin
He’s never thought about his weight
In anyway other than a number
The doctor reveals at checkups
It was never shopping with friends, it was self loath
I couldn’t bare anyone to see me in new clothes
I was closed. Locked in my room, secrets of hell close
And insecurities I held close
I still hold them with a tight grip
My seams are ripping with fierce destruction
I’m tired of hating my body.
It’s the only one I’ve got, I chuckle softly
But the laughter is only forced and again
I’m floored by this godly insecurity
That brings me comfort, oddly
She wants to gain weight, wait, what?
Says boys like girls with extra cushion
And a fat arse is all the rage nowadays
But the thighs have to match, you know
She’s been eating ice cream, cake, takeaways
They aren’t binges. She doesn’t feel guilty
Bed ridden, I haven’t been drinking or eating
I can’t move from the sickness or how hard
My heart is beating.
My body trembles, I’m weak and fleeting
In and out, disorientated and needing
Some sustenance but I can’t bring myself to get it
I know as soon as I eat I’ll regret it
This little voice wants to destroy and I let it
Another evening spent
Hungry
Alone
And I can’t wait to forget it.
They don’t view their bodies
In any other way than something
That they’ve always had
They don’t know the feeling
Of forcing food down, forcing food up
And eating laxatives like Smarties
I finally told you how I felt without protest
I said how I hated myself
And you couldn’t understand my detest
You listed all my good bits
My smarts, my creativity
My heart and most of all
My beauty
I just laughed, said I don’t see
What you must see
I appreciate the attempt to assure me
But I assure you my insecurities
Are stronger than you affirming my abilities
You said in my heart is purity
But my brain is tainted by this need to hate itself.
To berate itself,
To snake itself,
To forsake itself,
To break itself,
To make itself
The enemy.
Well, I said, then call me the villain
Because if you’re only going to try to fix me
Then I don’t want to listen.
I hope they never find out.
By Lyric Deep.
Lyric Deep™ 