story 3

It takes a fair amount of self-persuasion to stay in the den, and not crawl onto the bed and hibernate. This is just a phase in the cycle. When I am a few pounds lighter, everything will be back to normal. They told me I was underweight. I am not underweight. I do not dare grant myself with such a title. So my BMI is just under 20… the internet allows this to sink to 18.5 before it becomes underweight. I cannot be underweight, because my thighs do not meet expectations yet. They still can’t fit in the Pippa Jeans, thus I am still fat. I seemed to have convinced myself that my outer layer of fat is a flesh coloured bomber jacket. I only have to pull and rip hard enough, and eventually the leather will break or I’ll find the chameleon zip and the fat will seep out. I have also persuaded myself, although I know it to be a logical impossibility unless a limb self-combusts, that if I stand on the scale, and it decides to stubbornly remain at the previous day’s weight, that if I step off and then back on pounds will have burned up in the process, and I will see a new and illuminating figure at my feet. Of course this never happens, but this does not stop me from performing the double-take ritual. Sometimes the scales spite me and I somehow manage to gain weight on the second attempt. At this point I would swear at them, commence a series of star jumps, and try again.
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If, at any point, your magic world fails you, you close your eyes but remain in the dark, it is always safer to turn to Vogue – or any other similar glossy and fashion filled self-help guide. Flipping from page to page at an inhumanly rate, you have to find the fashion shoot. Adverts will not suffice. I need original, quirky and skinny. I need perfection that is trapped in these thin sheets of paper, the more I stare the more I am transported towards where they reside, and my magic world slowly regains life. Some months, I merely purchase the magazine to safely place among my shelves. Time passes, calendar months change, and they are perfectly untouched by human jealousy. They lay in wait of a day of panic, a loss of faith.
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“So… where do we go from here?” A sentence repetitively leaving the mouth of whom I like to describe my ‘Man Nurse’. I have to help myself, I understand his critical undertones. I get it, but I do not act. I cannot. I will not. I am yet to fall, to fly, to wrap a red balloon around my hand and lift off this earth towards another. I sit opposite him, legs curled up on the squishy chair, surrounded by enemy scales and ticking clocks. He can still see me, I am not the translucent ghost girl; I am still touchable. He thinks I am a joke. I am too heavy to be taken seriously. I dream the dream, but I do not live it. He talks of a “severely anorexic girl” who “will end up getting sent home or in hospital”. I ponder why he dares utter these insults at the distant dreamer, where is he hoping his arrow will hit? Is he ready to pounce at flashes of discontentment that will take life on my face, does he want to disparage me from making a choice that the screaming girl has already made? I am still unsure. During my childhood, I was certain that eating a watermelon seed would cause my stomach to become the foundations to a large watermelon house. Fortunately I never swallowed a seed. Now I think that the seeds he plants in my thoughts on a weekly basis, seeds that I mistake as criticisms more often than not, are forming a dangerous jungle around my dollhouse, making it impossible to relocate reality.

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A knock at my door unbalances my head. As I stand the space around me turns a bright white, I cannot focus on who is talking to me. Eventually the head settles, and my unknown friend takes on visible outlines. I am invited on a walk in the woods. I accept. The unknown friend does not judge me, does not tell me to eat a slice of bread. Towards her, I feel no need to be a rebellious toddler. The forest is safe, it is beautiful, it is frosty and magical, it leads to freedom.