Words In The Dark

envious of skeletons

dedication: Body Dysmorphia- A mental illness involving obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance.
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I wish my body was sculpted as an hourglass
remove each one of my ribs, until my hips sink in
tighten every corset until the blood leaves my head
and even then, pull a little bit more, until I never think of donuts again

I don't understand when calories became a sin greater than murder or when the time period of dinner became shorter and shorter

I still pause when asked what my diet consists of
For breakfast, I eat my regrets of yesterday's meals
For lunch, I contemplate if an orange of 60 calories is worth the 400 calorie work out I will need to do for dinner
For dessert, I stand out on street corners and post pictures on social media until someone tells me I'm beautiful

I'll tell myself for the tenth time this week
that the growl in my stomach doesn't hurt as much, if the numbers on the scale decrease
reminding myself that the dizzy headaches I get from workouts aren't scary if it's cause I didn't eat

no one could ever truly love me
not until my thighs are the size of quarters
and you'd need a bridge to fill the gap between
I'm not skinny enough to be attractive
The body I'm in never could cause a reaction

If my hips don't have dimples then
you will never know the texture of them in my smile
I am tired of seeing girls who are exquisitely beautiful
and didn't have to pay the toll to get there

If you don't know the pain of sucking on ice cubes instead of ice pops, or filling your stomach with water, until it is an ocean of emptiness
then I consider you one of the lucky ones

not that it means you are skinny
but just the bliss of no concerns

when you lose weight, it is not as much the weight that we thrive for
but the feeling of not caring, the feeling of content
the feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing the image of what we are, instead of the before of weigh loss photos

I'm afraid to cry now
terrified that the salt in my tears make up for calories
scared that my peers might see this and question,
"aren't you so glad, to not be fat anymore, to have blossomed into the woman you were always meant to be?"

honestly, if you looked into the web of my roots,
you'd see that malnourishment is a pesticide,too strong to be controlled
you'd see the magazine cuttings of skinny actresses to be murals on my walls
you'd see a string around my wrist, cutting off circulation, only allowed to be removed when it isn't tight anymore 

I'm sorry to the women that I have resented
It is not your fault that you are beautiful
It's mine
For thinking I could ever be your equal