Howl to the Moon
I hope you enjoy
8 pm, Saturday
I flip open my phone to read the text.
"Liet: Just thru up, i ate 2 much again... ): "
I frown. No. My best friend needs to have another lecture. "Food is bad, ur stomach isn't grumbling, it's applauding" I smile as I send the fact.
Sitting back I paint my nails. Pink, I like that color.
10pm Saturday
My urine is clear, my feces of nonexistence.
I step on the scale, watching the number hit 45 kilos.
I grit my teeth, I'm so fat. Fat fat fat. The other nations giggle when they see my butt jiggle. I feel the hot tears burn down my cheek bones which jut out from under my pale skin. I wipe them away, bone against bone making a strange raspy sound.
6 am Sunday
I can't sleep and I'm bored of bringing the sharp blades to my skin.
I sit here and remember a day about three years ago. Liet and I were staying at a cabin in the woods.
It was snowing. It was cold, like inside. Inside me is so hallow. Nothing but wind screeching and clawing at the emptiness inside me, ripping the hole larger, eating me away. So empty I could weep.
But I don't.
Liet and I, my best friend and I, we sit in the cabin, drinking shot after shot of vodka. Liet stands up and opens the door, letting harsh air come in uninvited and bite at our weak skin.
He howls at the moon and turns to me. He is drunk. He holds out a hand. "Come on Felicks! Let's celebrate!" he howls again, his voice screeching.
I stare at him, I look at his body. We look at eachother. We see it. We see it in ourselves.
We're fat.
12 PM Sunday
We stand side by side, or hip bones knocking and our legs bone thin. The pale paper that is our skin holds on just barely to our skeleton, veins pumping lazily and showing blue. We take turns stepping on the scale.
We are nearly the same weight. He gives me a hug and tells me I'm doing fine.
I know I am not.
7 pm Sunday
Who am I?
I am the the skin clutching to thinned bones. That hold up even thinner clothing.
I am the one who throws away his lunches and retches up anything that dares go in.
I eat 140 calories a day.
It's been three years.
I weigh less than a child.
I am a toy. I am a toy to my mind, my mind of which tells me I am fat, and I believe it's voice.
It's voice is comfort, comfort to me. So I must obey.
Liet does too, he eats more though. Or less. He throws up anything that goes in.
Midnight, Monday
I am standing in front of my bathroom mirror. I am bringing the sharp blade down, it barely grazes my skin.
My skin is sensitive.
It winces along with me, it cries. It's tears are crimson and it pours down it's cheeks which are my chest and stomach.
I am not satisfied.
I slit open my wrists. It is almost an instant react. The blade hardly reaches before the blood spills out. I plan to cut deeper.
I am cut off.
My phone buzzes.
"I'm dying."
Monday, 2 PM
I stare at him.
His thinned body is lying in a hospital room. The oxygen mask on his face, his eyes shut tight, his wrist hooked up to the IV.
I feel the tears forming.
I did this.
We did this.
We looked in carnival mirrors. All we saw were lies.
Lies we believed.
Lies that were tight ropes around our hands and feet, grading away or skin.
Lies that were maggots living inside us.
Eating us.
Devouring us and savoring each moment.
They tugged on our optic nerves, destroying our vision to see who we are.
9 PM Monday
He won't wake up.
10 PM Monday
I regret staying here. They are making me eat. They force the soup into my throat with their gloved hands.
They don't let me bring it out.
They keep guard against the door, watching me when I go in and out. Not letting me pull out the calories.
I don't know what time it is.
I am sitting here, watching Liet slip away from me.
Because we made a mistake.
Yet the voice screams and doesn't let me think. It tunes out my thoughts that tell me to eat.
That tell me to think wiser.
I hold his hand. His hand is larger than before.
I feel sinful for putting my sickly thin hand in his healthier one.
Health.
Isn't health better than being zero?
The voice doesn't think so. He says health is being skinny. Being wire cover in news paper.
News paper with disgusting words written upon it.
Fat. Ugly. Chubby. Round. Jiggly.
Tuesday, 7 am
Liet woke up. He woke up and stared me dead in the face.
I hope he doesn't notice the weight I have put on.
He goes back to sleep, clutching my hand. It hurts.
The nerve endings rub against my bone.
My bone.
I know I'll never reach zero because of it.
I would need to pull each thin and thawing bone out.
Reach in with a knife and scrape out the marrow.
No. No, the voice is saying this. Not me. Yet I am just a puppet for this voice to control.
It has eaten my insides. It is using my body as it's disguise. It is doing this.
Thursday, 4 pm
I am staying with Liet. The hospital is forcing me to eat.
To push in the horrible calories. To force my body to use them.
I want to consume them, I want to be healthy.
The voice wants me to spit them out and reach inside, pull out everything inside me. To lean over and retch out my organs. To be nothing but a heap of skin and hair.
Then I'll be zero, right?
Saturday, 1 pm
I am 45 kilos. I have gained a lot.
The voice isn't there so much.
I don't know why. I think he's scared. I think he sees Liet the way I do.
The price we payed for being skinny.
The voice shows up when I eat. The voice shows up when I leave for the bathroom.
Sunday, 2 pm.
My urine is yellow again. My cheek bones are starting to hide.
The voice is quiet.
I think I beat him.
If only.
Tuesday.
Liet is released from the hospital. I grip his hands.
I don't feel his bones as much anymore.
I hope he doesn't feel mine.
I'm almost better.
Almost.
But I know.
That, forever, I will always hold that parasite inside me.
That the voice will tug my hair and slap me for eating.
I know they won't be gone.
But I want them mad.
I don't want to bring my own death.
It's just stupid. Isn't it?
That I lost to a voice. That I lost to myself.
Friday
I sit on the balcony, Liet by my side, each with a piece of bread in hand.
I bite into the soft bread, the crust crunching in my mouth, the inner fluff brushing against my tongue and causing my saliva to form and eject onto it.
I look at Liet, he is smiling and placing a piece of salami on his bread.
We watch the sun set, the orange glow fill the horizon and the green grass sway with the wind.
We lean back and continue to eat, until Liet looks at me. "Why did we do it?"
I answer, "I don't know. Why did we do this?" I swallow the piece. I can feel the voice fuming and wanting to reach into my mouth and pull the bread out, to punish me and slide the blade against my skin yet again.
To re-draw the blood I have regained.
Friday night
I lay down in bed with Liet, our hands held. I am writing in here for the last time. I use a small flashlight on my shoulder to illuminate these pages.
I am out of pages.
I am a hero, I lived a fairytale. I beat the bad guy.
Which makes me sad.
I think off all the girls and boys out there who let the voice take them over and fill their skin with it's evil being.
I want them to win. I want them to make it angry, to defy it's laws. To laugh in it's face and trample it.
To look at magazine covers and spot the obvious photoshopping.
If only, if only everyone could realize that health is better than thin.
That that voice, that voice is the bad guy. That they need to pull on their cape and fight it.
Because, it's silly that the world's number one killer is yourself.