Bite The Bullet

the voices

I slowly climb out of bed and walk to the kitchen, my bare feet sticking on the tile. I get a glass of water and find my way back to my room in the dark. I flip the light on since I'm fully awake now anyway. As my eyes get vaporized by the lamp by my bed, I glance at the full length mirror on the wall. Is that really me? The voices chime in. Of course that's you. You are ugly. You are fat.
I make a note to myself that my hunger strike must last even longer. I immediately get down on the floor and do some sit ups. 48..49..50... I roll to my side aching. From hunger more than the sit ups. I reach for my water but my hand is shaking so much I just knock the glass over. I sit there for way to long, hunched over and wet.
I want to get better. I do. But. The voices start again. You will be better. You just need to be skinny. No one will like you if you are fat. I crawl to the bathroom and shakily stand on the scale. The numbers make me cry.
My mom says that since I am taller than average girls, I should weigh more than most girls. I want to believe her. But.
When I was 10 I went to a summer camp for the first time. I was one of those annoyingly happy kids who couldn't wait to make friends. That is, until I found out what a girls summer camp was like. The very first night one of the girls in my cabin made me and another girl stand side by side to see you was skinnier. It was decided that I was much fatter because I did not have that much longed for thigh gap. It didn't bother me much then. But now. The voices bring it all back to me.
Anytime I eat. I hear them. They taunt me. They tell me I'm ugly too. If only my hair was thicker, or longer, if only my complexion was clearer. The worst part is. I believe them.
I slowly get up off the bathroom floor and walk to my room. I turn off the light, then turn it back on. I hate the dark. I sit awake for hours. Lying on my bed. Sleep never comes.