“Oh, how I wish to be so small, people think I am disappearing,
I want to be a tragic beauty.”
I haven’t ever been able to write about my eating disorder
In a way that captures how “tragically beautiful” I felt at the time.
I will never be able capture that feeling
Because now I only feel the whisper in my ear from time to time,
It’s no longer a numbing scream that drives me crazy
When I go back to that time, I remember
How strong I felt, that I could look a cookie in the face and say
“No thank you.”
If I had only looked at my friends’ faces as I uttered those three syllables
If only I had been able to see myself through their eyes
Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a close call
Maybe I would have realized
That the cookie was not my enemy, after all
There’s a blonde-haired celebrity, and she’s all about that bass
She said she tried anorexia for a good three hours,
But she wasn’t strong enough, so she quit
Wow, I wish I could’ve quit my eating disorder,
If only I knew it was so easy!
Look, I get it, there’s a lot of fat-shaming in this society
And I know that it needs to stop,
But you know you can boost yourself up
Without throwing others under the bus
By telling us that the bones poking out of our hips and shoulders
Are meant for dogs, as if that’s all we deserve,
As if that’s all we’re meant for,
Because “real men like curves”
Cut that shit out!
I am worth more than any man or woman
Who would love me based only on my body,
But if you think I am defending the idea of being a tragic beauty,
Then you’ve got me all wrong
Let me make this clear:
There is nothing beautiful about wearing two sweaters
When it’s 70 degrees outside, just to keep from shivering
There is nothing beautiful about side-eyeing the boy
Who’s got grey skin, his ribs trying to rip through his flesh,
Lying to yourself that that’s not you in the mirror,
It’s someone else, someone who’s got skeletons in their closet,
But wait, it is you, and there’s only one skeleton,
It isn’t in your closet, it’s out on display for the world to see,
It’s looking back at you in the mirror,
You are not the tragic beauty you think you are,
You are the skeleton
You are a half-dead shell of the person you will be in five years,
And even though you don’t think you’re gonna make it that far
I am standing here to tell you that yes, you are.
Honey, you can be beautiful without a tragedy attached to it
I softened myself into something malleable
Which isn’t even all bad, except that now
I’ve taken on so many different forms,
I’ve forgotten I am a solid, not a liquid or gas
Forgive me if my shape gives me away
I thought we stopped caring about shapes
In the second grade, for god’s sake
And for god’s sake, do not dictate to me
What I should and should not be doing with this body
You didn’t care before,
Remember how I starved for your attention?
Well I don’t need it now because I am nourished
Because I am making myself whole again
But I still care about what strangers think of me,
Look at this body, look at what I am putting it through for you
I compress my chest into a different shape for you,
Even when it’s already hard to breathe
So forgive me if sometimes I am not
The man the world wants to see,
Just consider that I already feel like
The boy next door looks more like me than I ever will
With this poem I am trying to communicate a point about communication, and how we say things to each other. Words can really hurt us, and affect how we view ourselves and the world around us, particularly when it comes to self-image. The way we talk about eating disorders is one area that is particularly rocky; how do we promote body-positivity without stepping on the toes of those who don’t fit the stereotypes of beauty? In this poem I explore these questions, while also subtly connecting my own experience of an eating disorder with my experience transitioning from female to male, and the implied stereotypes of ideal body image for men and women.
