Whom do I spy in the looking glass when I envelope myself? I warmly wear the blanket of my past reflection, she’s sadly a proud yet broken identity forcefully dragged from my past’s dusty shelf. I understand the meaning of, the truth behind visual fact, my reflection possesses an ability to control how I am perceived, with her insistent dance of obsession and vanity, their relationship needless, self-imposed suffering. I’ve only tried her on for size, to see how she looks.Outwardly, my second skin flaunts her silhouette, wears clothes of skin-hugging style, she is thin, thin, in, jagged, and angular, all I used to be, she is hollowed, beautiful, she stuns me without words, allows her image to speak for itself, while her head is partway, swimming in the clouds. I lived and breathed her sought perfection, I almost perished for that emptiness being my truth, the truth that I believed mattered the most, that I could impress visually, though many others could do so, too. I scoured the forums, learned many tricks, I stubbornly pushed myself through gruelling workouts, despite being emaciated, dehydrated, and sick, it just seemed courageous to me, I was doing this; I was leading up to true living. But, I couldn’t keep up my body’s distress, the longer I went, the more I failed, food shovelled, binges entered into my face, then suddenly layers became layers became layers, and their eyes began to show less want. How fragile had I allowed myself to become to permit my existence and worth to be upon this earth spun propelled by opinions and feelings of strangers, passersby, the looks, their slight hunger, or appalled reactions within their eyes, and I now shudder to myself, how I believed being sick and hungry was strong when so many unwillingly suffer I turned my nose up at health and nutrition because I believed eating was weak and completely wrong. I’ve recovered, but as they say, there’s always an unhealthy relationship, between a ‘fixed’ eating disorder sufferer and both their treasure and source of pain, counting all the facts, I could slim down again if I wanted to go back, but the path itself I know is arduous and it’s painstaking, it’s not worth it, to return to the disorder of ordered intent. © 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved. Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay
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