Stepping out of the steaming shower
Gazing into the regretful mirror
I see a rosy potato shape
Morphing before my eyes
Until the curves are cellulite
And the skin is fat
The scale mocks me
From a distant corner of the room
But I can feel it calling to me
As if stepping on would be more like a handshake
Than a wrestling match
Between me and a number

I go upstairs
Because in my mind
The hundred extra sit ups
Will wipe out the pounds

I only had eggs for dinner
But they boil in my stomach
Until I convince myself the rumbling
Is because I am full, not body breakingly
Empty

Once, the despair swept me up
Until I was punching a rough mattress
Scraping my knuckles
They bled.

Once, a friend weighed me at school
Raised her eyebrows at the number
Didn't say another word
But she said it all in her eyes

More than once,
I told a friend
I had already eaten before lunch
I could see her buy the fib each time
Until spending these lies
Tasted like the food I hadn't eaten that morning

When two weeks were up
I had lost ten pounds
I felt accomplishment scoop me up
And hang me out in the sun
Until my stomach quaked
But I kept swallowing air

There's no calories in air
Thank goodness.

On the outside I gleamed radiance
No one saw the already exploded supernova within
Or that every step I gritted my teeth
And almost passed out on the stairs

Inside I was a black hole
No-
Not even a black hole
I was whatever eats a black hole,
Spits it out, and then nibbles on the edges
Just to make me squeal in pain

With the number as my label
I skipped out on ice cream treats
And Danishes
They were too rich for my poor body

I'd like to say I've learned since
Leave you with a moonbeam to hold
Instead of this truth
That will bite your hands
But as my waist gets smaller,
My heart gets number
Can you make me feel again?

I tortured my body
I tortured my mind
To make myself someone I saw
But she wasn't in the mirror
I couldn't find her in my crevices
So I'll shrink the crevices
Until I am no more