little lights

Not A Poem

This isn't a poem. It's really just. Just a story. It's context and insight into my life, and therefore it's a little bit triggering, mostly in the eating disorder department. I don't mind if you don't read this, I just really needed to get this down on paper (webpage?) and I know reading about other people overcoming their struggles has always helped me.

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        A lot of my problems started a very long time ago. I must've been eight or nine years old, and I was transferring schools. I don't know why it started, but I stress ate during that summer until there was an adorable extra plump to my cheeks and car tire of fat around my stomach. None of my back to school outfits fit me, my favorite leggings wouldn't come up past my knees, and I cried and told my mother that I wasn't pretty anymore. I worried for days before school began that nobody would want to be friends with me because my thighs jiggled when I walked and I couldn't run for very long without getting winded-- I was so embarrassed about it, I'd gone from a star ballerina and a model to a girl that just looked odd in her leotard and couldn't do the splits to save her life.

        I was sort of right. About people not wanting to be friends with me, that is. I was this chubby girl that was a good few inches taller than everyone else in the grade, and as if that wasn't embarrassing enough, I was also an annoying know-it-all that spent "reading group" time reading chapter books on her own because she wasn't at the same level as any of the other kids. I made two friends, though, shy and loyal girls that probably didn't care at all that I didn't like to go to the pool or that I didn't want to climb trees and that I worried I'd break the tree swing if I sat on it.

        Middle school was hell. I was still decidedly taller than everyone else, thighs like tree trunks and a muffin top that made all my pants ill-fitting, tight in the wrong places. I didn't want to wear skirts anymore, even though they were my favorite, because the cellulite on the backs of my thighs embarrassed me so much that I preferred to wear uncomfortable jeans all day. I still didn't have many friends, even in a relatively small school.

        I think I was in eighth grade when I started to punish myself. I was convinced that things would be easier if I looked more like everyone else, and I started to eat less and work out more. Eventually, I felt like hurting myself, I was so unhappy, but people would see my scars in the summer, and I didn't want anybody to know I was upset and so my stomach groaning for food was the pain, and I'd let it go on all day until I felt like I might pass out, and I'd have watered down oatmeal or a banana, because those had subtle flavors and I could almost pretend I was just chewing gum.

        Eventually, I looked the way I wanted to look, and boys started to have crushes on me. I was pretty again, I thought. I was thinner, but not too thin, and somehow, I just stopped starving myself. I just stopped. And I know it shouldn't have been that easy, and I know it never really is for anybody else. And I know it's dangerous, and I shouldn't have done it. But perhaps, I didn't have a skewed sense of how I looked, but instead a skewed attitude towards the chubbier spectrum of my size. But, no matter the case, I stopped starving myself, and I kept the weight off (who knows how) and I had a ton of friends. Boys wanted to date me, girls wanted to hang out with me. And that lasted for a really long time.

        I had my first boyfriend during that year, after years of watching other people have their first kisses and talk about the cute things boys said to them. Finally, finally, it was my turn to have a boyfriend. He was handsome, too, everyone in our grade wanted to date him. A nice guy, honestly, with brown eyes and floppy brown hair and the kind of skin that looked like he was a mix of every single race on the planet-- gorgeous. And we dated for the entire school year and summer. I had my first beer, my first sexual encounters, my first (and last) cigarette. I was modeling again, and in the local college's photography journal and newspaper more often than anybody else in town. I was the kind of girl other people took pictures of in black and white, the kind of girl whose clothes looked like they were made for her. I still flinched when people said "fat" or "chubby" even if they weren't aimed at me. I still sometimes watered down my oatmeal. But at least I was happy.