This story begins with a girl.

The one next door, the one we all know,

The one who we are, A Marilyn Monroe. 

She turned the pages of the magazine

Loaded 

with images of thin models and airbrushed faces

This was her first look at power.

Power, from a slim, hot body, 

The only bodies which possessed confidence, control, and capability

It seemed, without which, she was nothing of great importance. 

So she tried to lose weight, just to be perfect.

And waited for somebody to tell her she’s worth it.

 

She went to the bathroom and tried to hurl. 

“You know boys won’t like a fat girl.”

 

Locked.

Ready to fire.

Her body- her target.

 

Knees hit the hard tile floor.

Her hand clutched the cold porcelain

the other reached to touch her tonsils.

 

Her head bowed as an icy drop of sweat trickled down her spine

Her gasping breaths surrounded the soundless room

but she couldn’t hear them through the hammering of her heart in her ears

Throat: thirsty, raw, and burning.

Stomach wrenching to satisfy the wanting space.

The acid scent in the room mimicked the taste on her tongue

Head: pulsating, skull expanding by the throbbing of her brain.

Her eyes closed and her body doubled over in pain.

 

Binge and purge.

“A moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips.”

 

She stood taller

A soldier

proud of her badges.

Her hip bone, collar bone, and thigh gap.

But no one noticed these subtle differences

For she was a tree

Looking as strong as ever on the outside,

but inside parts began to snap

Parts that just don’t grow back

Leaving all that’s left as rotting years

All of which started with mirror fears

 

Then she began to skip her meals.

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny could feel.”

 

And now her fragile bones are sticks and stones

to which pale skin is stretched tightly over.

Her spine and ribs protrude from her transparent flesh and reveal a

skeletal, breakable body

Her lips are dry, and her face is gray 

and sickly with sunken cheeks and empty, hollow eyes.

Cuts markup her wrists and thighs.

 

Everything looks good on skinny.

The disease ate away at her,

while she didn’t eat a thing.

 

Bigger. 

Bigger.

Bigger.

Society was the gun, and her thoughts were the trigger.