Dear Anorexia
Summer of two thousand and something and it was the kind of summer most of Braidwood, Illinois wanted to hang- framed- above the doorways of their favorite hallways. Shoes swung from nearly every telephone wire on West Bergera Road and I remember this was the summer I learned it took about thirty times to form a habit. This was the fifteenth summer of existing and this was the summer I figured maybe I just didn't know how to "addict" right, the summer I called myself bruised instead of body, the summer, I swear, I must've mouthed "I'm fine" a thousand and one times in hopes of becoming it. Anorexia, we met in the middle of the calmest flood and I can't remember the going under part. Can't remember the moment- singular and specific and sound- my body became the sentence and my mouth; the comma in which mild catastrophes were always pausing to spill out. This morning was the first morning this year I didn't feel like dying and I want to cry about this. This year mostly felt like too much- mostly felt like a house on fire- and I feel like I've only got you to blame for it. Dear Anorexia, it is nearly the end of December and I finally feel the thawing. Everything is still painful- the growing, the food, the other side of sick- but it is bearable, now. Survivable, now, and I think it is a profound kind of thing to be able to say, "I am hurting, I am hurting, I am hurting. But I will not hurt myself."
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