to the boy who said he liked girls better when they could eat:

it is an addiction / the feeling of empty / where full should be / there is nothing more toxic / than wanting to tear your body apart / calorie by calorie / too tired of life to care / that you’re starting to smudge along the edges / a mirage just starting to disappear / because the only thing you can think of / is how good loose jeans feel / and soon you just go numb / to the feeling / of despair / because the feeling of empty / the feeling of reality slipping away / it’s addicting / and when you try to recover / guilt leaves a bad after taste / because you have spent so long / forcing yourself to be unfilled / that you have forgotten how to swallow / and the food feels unfamiliar / like a person you used to know well / who hasn’t wiped their feet / on the welcome mat yet / because they are not sure / if they are allowed to stay / but yes / say that you like your girls better when the can eat / because / i liked myself better / when i could too.

---

the other day i overheard a conversation where the boy remarked how he liked it better when girls actually ate. when they didn’t order salads or just nibble on their food. i was extremely angered by this. girls (and boys) can have eating disorders. there can be so many reasons why a person might not eat, so saying this is extremely insensitive and could be triggering to someone. one great misconception about eating disorders, is that a person can chose if they eat or not. while this might sound factually true, the reality is that the mentality of not eating is in place. so you are fighting against a mental barrier that says you shouldn’t eat. so your brain transmits this message to your body and after a while without food, your body will stop sending signals that it needs it. like hunger pains and stomach growling. the struggle of actually coming back from an eating disorder to try and live a normal life, is not talked about enough. it is so hard and so underrated. a person has to practically rewire their entire brain to stop seeing food as the enemy. even after they do this, there are days where they relapse and days where they feel so guilt for eating. for feeding themselves. there are times where they have to catch themselves before looking on the back of a nutrition label and adding up the calorie intake. i liked myself better when i could eat too but it is so scary to gain weight. to see the pounds add up when all you taught yourself was to watch them go down.