crash&burn.

The Parents:
  "You were diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia! That doesn't just go away in a year! Stop lying!"
The Girl:
   "I'm not sick!" She screams back. Her makeup is running, her nose is dribbling, her chin is crumpled.

I am sick. I'm not sick.
   Fight with parents. I spent half of the night crying and yelling, and the other half exercising and cursing under my breath.
   Words repeat in my head. we'removinginafewmonths. you'regettingoutoftreatmentinaweek. howcanyoudothisyou'resoselfish. it'sjustlikebeforebutworse.
   I want them to be quiet. I want my parents to float through a dream world. I want to be under a magic bubble where their words can't reach me. I want to sleep in a glass coffin and wake up a hundred years later to find everything changed. I want to jump into one of my books, a fairytale that can protect me in thin pages.
I want to go back to before any of this happened. I want myself back, whoever she was.

   I am not sick. I am running at three in the morning. I am stuffing food in my underwear. I am opening up my veins. I am burning skin. I am nights hunched over toilets. I am wingless, standing on a scale. I am passing out against walls. I am the host of Matilda. I am not sick.  

   I hate my parents for loving me.
I hate them for loving me, and leaving me to not understand why.
I hate the talents they see and I don't, I hate the pockets of yellow fat that bloom under my skin, I hate the soft curve of my legs and the body that is destined for womanhood, for existence. I hate my heart that beats through palpitations. I hate the stilts attached to me  that hold me up and keep me from falling to ruins. I hate when my hands are steady, when my heart does not race, and when my hair does not fall from my skull.
I hate wellness, I hate eating, I hate food, I hate love, I hatehatehate everything I should want.
   I'm scared of what I want, of what I should want.
I'm scared I want to ask for help. I'm scared I want to go back to the hospital.
I'm scared/tired/hungry/dizzy.
   I want to protect my family from this.
I want them to never know.

   Every night, every single night, my hands travel down me. Not so much to feel, but to search and destroy. I look for bones and pound against them until they ache, ringing the pain up and down to other bones. I look for scabs to open, bruises to press my fingers into. It is three am, the world is asleep, but I am wide awake picking apart my broken/breaking pieces.
When there are not enough bones left, I exercise until I am sure they'll show. When there are no scabs left, I open up my skin and let my inner oceans, red and thick, flood the white beach. When the bruises no longer ache, I hit my stomach hard with a fist or take a canister filled with change off the shelf and strike.