#(so it's good to have double justification for not forcing myself to eat foods I know I don't like and so on)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[cyan-nightshade]

Instruction Manual

They've always told me that poetry is power, And I agree. Words flowing from a poet's mouth Stronger than any river could ever Hope to be. Enough force behind words to build an army Or to break one. I listen to these poets, To their powerful linguistics, Hearing the bravery in each articulation As they share their stories of struggle And overcoming. I hear the tales of rehab, relapse, Rehab, relapse, And the methods of which it is done. The power of the poet is unparalleled, A sharp kitchen knife with a tiny black handle, Its purpose mundane, But with the ability to be so much more. I listen to these stories And the knife grows closer to my skin, Only it is not the poet gripping this edge. It is me. The words of others my own justification As I allow the steel to slice my skin, Beads of crimson blossoming in the form of inspiration. Instead of learning from this power As it was intended, I'm learning everything I had done wrong. I begin to take notes in a margin As thin as she (I) wants me to be. I learned to count calories That's what All of the pretty girls in the poems do That's how they all start Shoot for under 1,000, No more than 1,500 Making mental notes of what I eat At a meal so I can look up The calories later That is, If I can't sneak a look at the box it Came in I start to memorize the values The numbers The calculator in my head ticking Every time something is put Into my mouth It's funny how much everything Can start to taste like calories Like self hate Like wanting to be thin All of the poets say "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" And I've learned that to be true Anger comes when I eat something I know I could've gone without Red anger, as red as an apple Did you know just how unhealthy an apple is? 95 calories 95 too many Tearing myself up for not being lower 1,000 is too much 900 is too 800 is It’s all too much I control this I count I count to numbers that might as well Equal infinity Any number becoming Far too high I remember a day my net was 300 And it felt like 3,000 It’s never enough I learned to starve, To empty myself to make room For love Hungry became comfortable Full became repulsive I listened to the stories of the Thin, pretty girls who talk about Being so empty, Of being able to feel cold water Slip down into an empty stomach And now I know what that's like Food begins to taste Like bile Water tastes like heaven Pure and empty and clean As pure and empty and clean As I want to be It was hard at first, Emptying yourself of all things Inside, But it became a second nature An instinct that I must pursue It became easy to be sick And starving Happiness and hatred became synonyms with the feeling of being so empty, somehow both so incomplete and complete as long as i'm curled over myself screaming at the pain that screams in my stomach, hands claws and fingers curled and hair falling out and nails breaking and scratches down my arms and pain Pain, but so blissfully empty So blissfully starving Eating in front of mirrors so I know just how disgusting i appear So I know better next time So next time it'll be a fetal position and soft sobs I feel the prettiest When I am starving I learned how to purge I used to shuffle my way to the bathroom an hour later as the self hatred began to set in, but i learned that you can't wait for the feeling to come that you must rush to the toilet and vomit up the loathing before it can attack Only the feeling still comes Just this time it's for not shoving your finger down your throat quite far enough I wonder often how i'm supposed to hide the habit when a mint has 25 calories and gum has 5 The taste of vomit that lingers my shame and my pride Knowing that it hurts but knowing that it's worth it Cheeks puffy and insides curling, twisting, trying to figure out a pattern of how and when I'll destroy them this time, a mind shouting yes as a stomach shouts no every time I kneel in front of a toilet Excuses of being sick and a stomach hurting, of just needing to use the bathroom at lunch when i stand to leave every day They must know Or perhaps I just hide it well enough Hide it beneath the surface Like a secret that could take the world down, only this one destroys only myself in being kept so well I learned to diet, something I'd formerly found so dumb and useless, something I'd turn my nose up to every time someone said they were starting one Now, a skeleton, I scour the internet for something that would work, that would make me thin I try everything and every restriction, trying to find something that will take away the hate but it only always adds Not strict enough Not taking it far enough Not committed enough Never enough Not enough I learn my ABCs all over again and fast when i'm told, doubling calorie amounts on the days i am weak Told to do the skinny girl diet instead, but those values are far too high I will practice my ABCs until I lose every last piece of myself I don't care about safe I care about loss About being thin About being able to see my ribs as if there were no skin at all Merely tissue paper on top of bone, protecting a heart that begs to stop beating, to stop taking care of a body that's being destroyed by its owner What's the point in a beating heart in a body that's falling apart? In a body that's controlled by a diet that involves fasting at least once a week? By a body regulated by a diet actually called boot camp? A diet where you bleed until you don't and cry until you can't? I learned that binging is normal Well, when you have ednos that is When you’ve starved yourself for So long And you just can’t take it any longer And you just break You give it Food tastes like giving up Of giving in to something so much Darker I feel the hatred rise as I take the First bite of 100 Trying to chew slowly But end up not even tasting It all tastes the same Like poison Like regret Like I will never be good enough Gorging myself on every last morsel I can get my tiny, pale hands on Did I take a sip of water Or is that my tears? Streaming down my face as I devour all I see Devour the semblance of love I had For myself Swallow it whole It hurts, Giving in so easily when I know I could’ve lasted I know the cycle too well though The disgust toward myself, The not taking care of myself, The binging until I feel like I’m going To vomit And at that point I might as well The food is all of the love I want Eliminating room for it No one can love this pig Rolling around in her own Self loathing As she stuffs her face with slop Bloated and full of poison This might kill me more than The starvation The despising nature I carry toward Myself Fingers and hands shaking as I Shovel more and more within me Broken Sobbing Eating Dying I learned to exercise A past source of depression and Exertion Something so studiously avoided Because it always made me feel So unworthy But now I know it’s necessary It is vital in become thin It becoming a skinny Legend Do the elliptical, do they leg lifts Burning calories Toning Trying to do anything to help The cause Exercising on an empty stomach Feels like floating Or is it dying? I can’t tell My mind is too foggy My body screaming at me to stop When I’ve already made so much Progress Wanting to vomit But wanting to be thin even more Is it worth it? This pain? My muscles aching the next day My body hushed by my hell brain That tells me this is what it takes When I feel like quitting I just think of all of the people I will have let down because I couldn’t do what was necessary To become as thin as I possibly could Giving up on a dream that Always seems to slip through my Fingers, like the handles of an Elliptical that I so weakly try to hold The calories I burn Never seem to be enough, Telling myself only 50 more, Only 100 more, Let’s burn 500 It hurts to the core To be so miserable And so unable to stop I think I blacked out eventually So tired So weak So incapable of even doing just this Of stopping Of taking breaks What a failure I’ve learned so much So much that contradicts All I’ve been taught The mirror reflecting an image that i can no longer tell is true Skin not spread quite thin enough across my ribs Bones resting not close enough to the surface Notches in my spins showing through like stones when i need them to look like mountains, jagged enough to keep away the love i don't deserve