I love it when my tummy talks to me
It mumblesmumbles and
I talk back.

Before I learned this language,
(I can speak English, German and Stomach now)
I used to
shut it up,
stuff it. Living out
my biggest nightmare:
OBESE.

I love it when my tummy talks to me
It growls and
I encourage...
an expressive tummy is a good tummy.

Before I learned this mind
(CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL!)
I used to
be a victim to
my biggest nightmare:
The Eager-to-Eat Syndrome

Well, I've been cured and
I love it when my tummy talks to me.

You wonder why you’re not pretty like her
And why God didn’t bless you with her curves
You wonder why you’re the one they call fat
Do you think it’s something you deserve?

You wonder why the boys don’t like you
And why they only look at one thing
But with the others, they look at everything
You wonder why you’re not skinny.

You ask yourself how it came to this
And how you got so big
you wonder why no one said anything
And if you’ll ever win.

You’re growing colder now, too cold
You cry when you’re alone at night
And into yourself you fold
You’re crawling under your skin.

You know that if you don’t eat,
You won’t get what you really need
But maybe you’ll become skinny, and
You can make up for this gluttony and greed.

You wonder what will happen if you don’t eat
Will you die eventually because of starvation?
You tell yourself once you’re skinny, you’ll eat
But then, you start thinking in new ways

You can never be too skinny
You’d rather die than be fat
In this game, you have to be winning
Even if it means losing life for that.

I could walk on air!
Dance on tiptoe, it’d be lovely!
You’d pick me up and spin me around thinking nothing of it.
Admire my skeleton, dear.
I could drink lots of coffee.
Smoke lots of cigarettes.
Drink diet pepsi and eat grapefruit!
This is going to be fantastic!
I promise you.

But I will vomit.
I will starve.
I will hurt.
My teeth will fall out pretty collection.
My hair all over the floor--perhaps I can make a dress?

Maybe I’ll be so tiny, I’ll just fall through your fingers.

A girl surrounded with mirrors suddenly asks herself
"Why can't I be skinny? Being pretty sounds so fun"
A girl surrounded with mirrors suddenly looks at her clothes
"Why can't I be popular? Is this really a size one?"

A girl looks all around her and decides what to do
"I should look like the other girls, not like this"
A girl looks all around her and goes to the other room
"Diet pills? Will that make a zero fit?"

A girl gets hooked on drugs who is barely seventeen
Now she spends her days throwing up her self esteem.

dear diary

I don't think, I can ever be pretty.
I ate fifteen calories more than I should today, my mum says I have to go to the doctor because I never eat anything, I got a B minus in English … it seems like no matter what I do, it's wrong.

my mum just doesn't get why I don't like to eat their food. she doesn't see, that I can't be as ugly and fat as she is – she can't see, how pretty my bones are beginning to look, or how imperfect my body still is. no-one understands me.

I'm so disgusted by myself, but the starvation keeps me sane.

I have to buy some new sweaters to wear at the doctor's tomorrow, so he can't see how I'm getting closer to my ideal weight. 35 kg, here I come.

nighty night
your anna.

Ellos dicen que estoy estable.
Fallé comiendo, fallé bebiendo, fallé dejando de cortarme. Fallé en la amistad. Fallé siendo hermana e hija. Fallé con los espejos y la pesas y las llamadas telefónicas.
Que bueno que estoy estable.

¿Por qué? ¿Quieres saber por qué?

Pararte frente una cama de bronceado y freírte por uno o dos días. Después de que tu piel burbujee y se caiga, rodar sobre cuarzo, después vestirte con ropa interior hecha de vidrio y navajas. Sobre eso va tu ropa normal siempre y cuando sea ceñida al cuerpo. Fumar pólvora e ir a la escuela para saltar a través de aros, sentarte y rogar para pedir el comando. Escuchar los susurros que entran en tu cabeza durante la noche, llamándote gorda y fea y entupida y perra y prostituta y lo peor de todo “una decepción”. Vomitar y morirse de hambre y cortarse y beber porque no quieres sentir nada de esto. Vomitar y moriste de hambre y cortarse y beber porque necesitas un anestésico y esto funciona. Por un rato. Pero entonces el anestésico se convierte en veneno y para entonces es demasiado tarde porque lo estas asimilando, directamente hasta tu alma. Esta dentro de ti y no puedes detenerlo.

Miras en el espejo y encuentras un fantasma. Escuchas cada latido de tu corazón y gritas diciendo que todo esta mal contigo.

I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how anybody does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no grades below a B, because really, nobody’s average, not around here. It’s a dance with complicated footwork and a changing tempo.
I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find her way to the exit. All eyes on me.

The breakup with my mother was the same old story told a million times. Girl is born, girl learns to talk and walk, girl mispronounces words and falls down. Over and over again. Girl forgets to eat, fails adolescence, mother washes her hands of Girl, scrubbing with surgical soap and a brush for three full minutes, then gloving up before handing her over to specialists and telling them to experiment at will. When they let her out, Girl rebels.

I close my eyes.
As I step on the scale, Jennifer warns Emma about ice cream.
As I step on the scale, Emma fears vanilla.
As I step on the scale, Dad swings his racket and scores.
As I step on the scale, Mom slices open a stranger.
As I step on the scale, shadows edge closer.
As I step on the scale, Cassie dreams.
I open my eyes. 099.00 pounds. I am officially standing on Goal Number One.
...
They are morons. This body has a different metabolism. This body hates dragging around the chains they wrap around it. Proof? At 099.00 I think clearer, look better, feel stronger. When I reach the next goal, it will be all that, and more. Goal Number Two is 095.00, the perfect point of balance. At 095.00, I will be pure. Light enough to walk with my head up, meaty enough to fool everyone. At 095.00, I will have the strength to stay in control. I’ll stand on the blocks hidden in the toes of my satin ballet slippers, pink ribbons sewn into my calves, and rise above up in the air:
magical. At 090.00, I will soar. That’s Goal Number Three.

“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the library aide who hides in Fantasy.
I am the circus freak encased in beeswax.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.
When I get close, they step back. The cameras in their eyeholes record the zit on my chin, the rain in my eyes, the blue water under my skin. They pick up every sound on their collar microphones. They want to pull me inside of them, but they’re afraid.
I am contagious.


{so, tell me your secret ♥}

I need to run, to fly, beating my wings so hard I can’t hear anything over the pounding of my heart. Rain, rain, rain, drowning me.

Yo era lo peor dentro la maldad, dijo Cassie. Una influencia negativa, una sombra toxica. Mientras yo estaba en observacion, sus padres la arrastraron hasta un doctor que le lavo el cerebro y la lleno con pastillas y palabras vacias. Necesitaba seguir adelante con su vida, redefinir sus limites, dijo ella. Yo era la razon por la que se saltaba clases y reprovaba Frances, la causa de todo lo malo y peligroso.
Equivocada, equivodaca, equivocada.

Yo fui la razon para que ella no escapara del primer año de secundaria. Yo fui la razon para que ella no se tomara un frasco de pastillas para dormir cuando su novio la engaño. La escuchaba por horas cuando sus padres le gritaban y trataban de convertirla en un maniqui que ella no era... Sabia lo mucho que dolia ser la hija de gente que no puedia verte, ni siquiera cuando estabas frente a ellos golpeando el piso con tus pies.


{yeah right}

I eat ten raisins (16) and five almonds (35) and a greenbellied pear (121) (= 172).


{crazy fucking bitch ♥}

I won’t pollute my insides with Bluberridazzlepops or muffins or scritchscratchy shards of toast, either. Yesterday’s dirt and mistakes have moved through me. I am shiny and pink inside, clean. Empty is good. Empty is strong.

I pour too much cereal (150) in the bowl, splash on the two-percent milk (125). Breakfast is themostimportantmealoftheday. Breakfast will make me a cham-pee-on.

-“Why don’t you have one of the muffins? I bought oranges yesterday, or you could have toast or frozen waffles.”
-(Because I can’t let myself want them) because I don’t need a muffin (410), I don’t want an orange (75) or toast (87), and waffles (180) make me gag.

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it.

"Si hablamos en serio tengo que decir que todavía me asustan dos cosas más que nada en el mundo (es decir, de las cosas que se me ocurren ahora). Y esas dos cosas son el abandono y el reemplazo. Los dos por igual. En realidad son casi lo mismo. Toda la vida me sentí reemplazada y lo cierto es que no sé luchar cuando me están desplazando. Cuando llega a mi familia, a mi grupo de amigas o a mi vida un par, simplemente opto por retirarme, siento que no puedo ser competencia de nadie."

"Supongo yo que mis problemas alimenticios siempre tuvieron mucho que ver con lo que estaba pasando en mi cabeza. Es decir: yo no tenía problemas de depresión porque era anoréxica sino que era anoréxica a raíz de que tenía problemas de depresión. Porque, seamos sinceros, una persona feliz no deja de comer durante x cantidad de días. Una persona feliz y despreocupada, una persona “normal” (si es que existe aquello) no cuenta cada caloría: simplemente come."