Skinny

My hand, pressed flat, to my stomach, trying to mold it into the perfect, caved-in valley that the golden-skinned models sport, that it never stays in the shape of. My stomach is barely poking out, but even that millimeter is enough to convince myself of my inevitable fate.

'''95 pounds is overweight. I can go a little lower...'''

'My voice, repeating the oddly reassuring mantra to myself and everyone around me who asks. “I’m not hungry,” I say. I never have been. At first, when I was younger, it was just childish pickiness that kept me skinny. But it’s not anymore. It’s the promise of eternal slimness.

'''93 pounds is overweight. I can go a little while longer..'''

My feet, anxiously resting on the cold metal scale, watching as it doles out my fate right before my eyes. Finally, the numbers stop fluctuating, and I am given a glowing blue number as my verdict.

'''89 pounds is overweight. I can go a little more.'''

My legs, aching from miles and miles of daily exercise. Running, biking, swimming. I do it all. Today, I’ve spent three hours at the gym. Tomorrow, I’ll do three and a half. Exercise is important, no? It keeps you skinny, after all.

'''87 pounds is overweight. I can go a little further.'''

My friends, making fun of my strict 100-calorie diet, taking me out to ‘fat-free’ restaurants that have salads (and only salads) on the menu. Of course, they’re entitled to laugh at me because I’ve always been ‘the skinny girl’, and it’s up to me to live up to that. But it’s not that easy to stay that way.

'''91 pounds is overweight. I can go a little skinnier...'''

My eyes, slowly fighting the drowsiness as I awaken, taking in the sights around me. A white ceiling, with a gray fan halfheartedly spiraling in the same path, over and over. Someone standing over me, with a badge gleaming with the title “DOCTOR”, silently judging my every move and taking it into account with the clipboard in his hand. There’s a lingering, pricking feeling in my index finger, and I loll my head over groggily to look. It’s a metal bracket, clipped to my finger and monitoring my heart rate, explaining the beeps I hear every now and then. As I look around, overwhelmed with apprehensiveness, the beeps pick up at a rapid rate. They soon begin to regain their rhythm again, however, when the doctor pats my shoulder calmingly. ‘It’s okay’, he’s trying to say to me.

After all, if you aren’t recovering, you are dying.

-turquoiseember