I have long abandoned starvation, the counting, the calculated calories, the cyclical body checks, the brittled, broken hair and yellow fingers, the aching and the numbing hunger pains, the feeling of being air-tight, claustrophobically trapped in a house of mirrors. Empty, hollow, concave, artificial. My flesh consuming itself parasitically. Dying from embarrassment of having to occupy a physical body, ashamed to breathe, afraid it would be selfish. I was 20 when I began to eat again.
I turned 25 this year, and the gift I gave myself was getting to stay in my body. I can climb mountains and run and kick up dust, and twirl my hips like the orbits of the planets, swerving and gliding with the tides, dipping flirtatiously, clasping stars between my finger tips and dragging them to earth. I can scream curses at whistling men, fight in this dimension and beyond, throw a good punch. My body is a tapestry of adventure, a symphony of bewilderment. It carries, it captures.
This system was designed to keep myself small, tiny, manageable, quiet. I want to overflow around it. I will be like the giant goddesses that piss out rivers and knock down kings. I don’t want to be thin. I want to be supernatural.