𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬

a puzzle undone- bucky

tw: body negativity, body talk 

"Sounds perfect," you breathed, voice strained, far from the conversation as you heard Bucky talking on the other end of the phone, beaming about the night he had planned for you, excited to be back in town after his mission and you were excited too, had been for weeks now, but your body always had a way of stealing your joy.

"See you soon, doll," Bucky noted, and you hummed in acknowledgment of his words, barely registering them as you were grateful that he accepted the wordless reply, beeping following his silence as you brought the phone down from your ear.

You were no stranger to the disgust that dipped into your lips as your eyes sifted over the reflection in the mirror, thoughts running wild, begging you to look away, to hide, begging you for a release of a sight you had no desire to be exposed to and so you looked away, always did, closing your eyes as you threw the phone onto the crumpled up dress that laid abandoned at the foot of the mirror.

It was futile, hiding from yourself, pretending you didn't see what you wished weren't there. Your fingers moved at their own accord, slipping over skin, dipping between folds as you gathered a handful of fat and pushed what you could into yourself, pretending it took it away, pretending it wasn't there, but it was, it remained, no matter your attempts to rid yourself of it.

Was this what people saw? Was this why you were never enough? Because you had too much? Too much skin, too much fat, too much personality for a person that shouldn't be greedy for attention? Too much love for a person who would only be used? It was all you saw when you looked in the mirror, surely, they saw it too. Saw how you tried to make yourself small to make up for being anything but.

You couldn't tell what was right about the vision that haunted your mind like a ghost of your better self, wailing to be remembered, to be returned. It wasn't like you hadn't tried, you'd tried it all to the point of losing yourself completely and then some, but it wasn't enough. None of it was enough, not for you, not for anyone. No wonder the hatred seethed in the gazes and the distaste bubbled from their mouths, if they saw what you saw, then they had every right to be ashamed on your behalf. How can this be the body you'd been given? How could you have been picked to live your life so miserably when others got to be freed of the cages sat by curves you'd been told to love only to be mocked for trying to do so?

Love? You had love to spare, and what you'd give to share it. Share it? With who? Who'd look at these pieces that formed a puzzle so horrid that you'd hidden the picture to build it. Leave it undone, that's what you're supposed to be. Forever longing for a body that was not your own. Being lectured on the things it does for you- it carries you, bleeds life into you, forces your heart to sing, how dare you hate it? Because no one knows, no one wants to hear words spewed out of utter loneliness and suffocating sadness, hating yourself so vividly that the very body you despised ached. Their hatred was valid, yours was selfish- you chose this.

Did you? Would it hurt this much to look into the mirror if you wanted this? Who'd want this? Who'd want to live if this was what it was, hunger from withholding yourself of anything that might add another puzzle piece, working your body towards a longing for unconsciousness because it was good for you, replacing meals with water and cravings with fasting because you must lose the pieces. Lose the pieces, don't pick them up. If you were anyone else, they would be worried, if you were anyone else they'd tell you how you were harming your body but you're you and you're too much and there was no harm in a little torture when the result would be perfection. You don't want perfection, you want acceptance, not from them, screw them- from you. You wanted your mind to be good to you, treat you with the kindness it handed out so freely to anyone else. Where was your kindness? When you were crying in the bathroom after eating before you should? When you were trying on dresses for his birthday, hoping one would make him see past what you saw? When you were sat alone at a table while the ballroom danced? Where was that kindness then?

Would this be your forever? Tears shed in secret, hunger painted as the enemy, clothes aimed to hide your body from your own prying eyes? If this was all you had then surely it was better not to have anything. How pointless the deeds of this body you'd been gifted if it doomed you to a life you wish would pass.

You were numb by the time Bucky had stumbled into the bathroom, accustomed to the sight of you in your underwear, to the bitter tears that littered your wet cheeks, to the hands that prodded at yourself in an attempt to seem less, to the way you tortured yourself with a gaze of hatred that scanned the mirror.

"Sweetheart," he began, and you exhaled, your body nearly crumbling from the notion as his arms surrounded you, pulled you into him, onto him, as close to him as the matters of physics allowed. "That's enough," he breathed, and you were sure you gasped, nimble hands wanting to push him away, empty words trying to force him to leave, free him of the selfish need that you had for him, but he never paid you any mind. He saw you, all of you, he saw the puzzle as it laid before him undone, ripped at the seams, scorched and hammered, destroyed from the inside out.

He saw, and he never looked away, even when you did.