Contemplating Unhealthy Eating Patterns

Contemplating Unhealthy Eating Patterns • Bee Manesse

I told myself that I wasn’t sure how I felt about my clothes not fitting,

A pair of overalls that used to cling to the curve of my belly

Now shifts over empty space between fabric and flesh.

I told myself I wasn’t sure

So I would not admit to liking it.

Because I know it is wrong to want to be thinner, not healthier.

I don’t have an Eating Disorder because I do eat.

“I feed myself every day,” a mantra that spawned from thinking

I am in control.

But people who eat don’t Feed Themselves,

They have Meals or Snacks.

They sit and they enjoy and they dine together.

To feed is to control the animal of hunger

Not to befriend it.

A well-meaning aunt of mine sat with me in a restaurant,

And when I told her I had lost my appetite

She told me she was not worried.

“I can’t see bones,” she said.

I don’t have an Eating Disorder because I know what it looks like.

The image of a teary-eyed, troubled girl tangled over the toilet.

She is not me.

I have not “evaporated;” I am not mist.

I don’t have stories of starvations like the stunning girls around me do.

I don’t have an Eating Disorder because I am not good enough.

I haven’t practiced enough.

I haven’t let the animal ravage me,

Destroy my body.

Yet.