Stagnant

Despondency

My ribs, my collarbone, my thighs, my arms.

I can't find an ounce of fat. I'm anorexic but without the realisation. It's not like I don't eat because I don't want to gain weight so I'm not anorexic in that aspect, I just can't find the energy to eat and normally, most of the time, I'm just not hungry at all.

A thigh gap, visible ribs, a flat stomach, a tiny waist. They're the things modelling agents look for: 'the perfect body'.

If it's the perfect body then why don't I like it?

Of course there was no such thing as the perfect body, in fact everyone was beautiful and no one was perfect. I kept that in mind, trying to convince myself that I was beautiful because no matter what shape someone was or what they looked like, they were always beautiful to me.

But this... this creature in front of me, this thing was not beautiful.

My skin had taken on a sort of grey twinge while my face is scarce white. I'm a zombie but without the eating brains part.

There's a need within me to fall to the floor, to shout and flaunt my incessant vocabulary, to cry a river of tears that the Amazon would be jealous of. But I can't. I'm numb. I can't find anything within me that actually cares about my body. I want to care, a small part of my brain wants to cry since it is the reasonable reaction but I can't. My tear ducts have dried up more than a river in the Sahara.

Everyone believes pain is the worst thing imaginable, the emotional pain within you. The agonising pain and thoughts that bombard you. When I felt the pain I wanted to be numb, I wanted the pain to stop and to just feel nothing. But now I want that pain, I want to feel something because standing in front of the mirror, wanting to cry but not being able to is worse than any pain I've ever endured.

I'm just fucking empty.

Instead, I turn away and climb in the shower.

The clothes Jackson picked out was an oversized long sleeved top that fell to my knees and a pair of leggings (probably his mum's). The top hides everything, every sign that I don't eat which satisfies me. I don't want Jackson around longer than he has to be. He'll 'prove' that life is more meaningful and when he realises that I can't find any meaning or happiness in life, he'll let me be on my way to death.

I heard -or read- that people who commit suicide instantly end up in Hell. That doesn't bother me. Like I said, this year has been worse than Hell. I'll be thankful I'll be able to live in peace and relax down there.

"Here are my clothes." I pass the pile of my clothes to him which he takes with a smile and stuffs them in the washing machine.

"Sit." He gestures his head to the table behind me where there's a box of pizza and sides with a display of sauce. I do as he says, sitting opposite him while he digs in.

I watch him while his dark blonde hair flops down on his forehead from the rain, some strands in random directions from where he's roughly dried it with a towel. He's changed clothes now, they -and him- are dry.

"Aren't you going to eat?" He interrupts my scan of him.

Shaking my head, I stare down in to my lap. "I'm not hungry."

"Li- Eliza... can I call you Eliza?" I shrug before nodding my head. I hadn't been called that before. It was new. Different. Safe. "Eliza you have to eat. You're going to get ill if you don't eat and I can already see that you're thin, dangerously thin. Please just eat. One slice."

His pleading voice struck a chord with me, it sounding like someone I used to know and that bothers me. Instead of commenting or arguing because I simply do not have the energy, I take a slice with shaky hands and bite in to the cheese and tomato pizza hesitantly, the flavours and textures exploding on my tongue and I almost moan.