Fragments

Empty Overflow.

I was ten
when I first prayed
for absence.
Not for death—
just the gentle erasure of myself.
To wake up smaller,
less visible,
to fold inwards like origami,
a girl into nothing,
a boy into silence,
a body into shadow.

And the world—
it handed me the tools:
celery, shame,
slogans in pastel pink.
It taught me that control
was the highest virtue,
that hunger was holy
if you wore it like discipline.

I learned to worship
empty plates
and punish the scale
for every rebellion.

They called it "wellness."
They said "You’re just looking after yourself."
But every ad whispered:
Starve prettily.
Shrink politely.
Smile when you're dizzy.

They never saw the shaking hands
holding a fork like a threat.
They didn’t see me
chewing and spitting in secret,
smiling at dinner,
crying in the bathroom after.

Some days, I didn’t eat at all.
Some days, I ate everything I could find—
cold leftovers, dry cereal, spoonfuls of peanut butter
like it might fill something other than my stomach.
I wasn’t hungry—
I was desperate.
Lonely.
Frantic to feel anything
other than the sharp edge of control cutting through me.

And afterward—
always the same script:
Shame.
Regret.
Punishment.
Fasting the next day,
a cycle wearing a mask of discipline
but tasting like self-hate.

That’s the part they don’t tell you—
that food can feel like comfort
and like poison
in the same breath.

I feared food
like it was a trap with teeth,
but I loved it, too,
in the quiet hours,
when no one could see me swallow.
I buried grief in chocolate wrappers.
I smothered silence with sugar.
And hated myself
for every bite.

Anorexia is not always glamorous,
not all sharp cheekbones and ballet metaphors.
Sometimes it’s just
your hair falling out in the shower.
Your brain fogged like static.
Sitting on your floor at midnight
trying to decide whether one piece of toast
makes you a failure.

Binge-restrict is a seesaw
tied to your ribcage—
always tipping,
never resting,
your body a pendulum swinging
between too much and nothing at all.

I have cried
over a banana.
I have skipped meals
as self-harm.
I have comfort-eaten
until I couldn’t breathe
and still felt empty.

And yet the world claps
when I am shrinking,
when I am pale and quiet,
when my clothes hang loose
like I’ve outgrown myself.

I have destroyed myself
in every way that gets you praised.

Food is a battlefield.
A prayer.
A punishment.
I have chewed on guilt
more than I’ve chewed on bread.
I've counted calories
like confessions I never meant to speak aloud.

Billboards promise thinness
like it’s salvation.
They call it “self-control”
but sell it like surrender—
shots, shakes,
$49.99 monthly plans
to erase the softness they taught me to hate.

I scroll past before-and-afters
where the “after” always smiles wider—
but never eats birthday cake.

They say:
you are not enough
until you're less.
They mean:
you are more worthy when you disappear.

But I am not a project.
Not a “before.”
Not a body carved into trend.
I am hunger and hormone,
history and healing,
stretch marks like lightning scars
from storms I survived.

And some days—
I still fail to eat lunch
because I fear being seen
in the wrong kind of full.

Some nights—
I swear off food like a promise
I know I’ll break by dawn.

This isn’t about vanity.
This is about grief.
Control.
Fear.
Trauma that settled into my body
before I had the words to name it.
A war I was drafted into
without consent.

But I am trying.
To eat when I’m hungry.
To forgive the mirror.
To unlearn the ads.
To make peace with the skin I live in.

Some days,
healing feels like defiance.
Eating feels like protest.
Letting myself feel full
feels like heresy
in a world that worships empty.

I am learning
that a body is not a problem to solve.
That being alive is enough to deserve a plate.
That I do not need to shrink
to be seen as gentle.

This body has carried me
through every grief and every joy,
and still, I treat it like a burden.

But I am learning—
slowly—
that I was never meant to be small
just to be loved.

I am learning
to see food as nourishment
not a weapon.
To see my body as a home
not a crime scene.
To feed myself
like I feed someone I love.

It is not easy.
It is not linear.
I still flinch at mirrors.
Still skip meals when I’m anxious.
Still eat too fast, too much, too late,
then curl into a guilt-soaked silence.

But I am learning to return
—to the plate,
to the body,
to the breath.

I am unlearning the lie
that pain is purity.
I am choosing softness,
choosing fuel,
choosing life.

Not to be beautiful.
Not to be praised.
But to be whole.

And if you are reading this,
still swinging between hunger and hurt,
between fear and fullness—
I see you.

You are not alone in this ache.
You are not broken.

You are surviving.
And that is a kind of holy, too.