She Is Anorexic

She is Anorexic

She measures herself in silence.

Each bone counts, each curve noted,

a map of absence,

a landscape carved from fear.

She walks through rooms,

through mirrors,

through the whispers that echo

and she bends to them,

folding into herself

until there is almost nothing left.

The world presses around her,

heavy and full,

but she steps aside,

shrinks,

pulls the edges of herself tight,

as if space itself could kill her

if she took up too much.

Hunger is her companion,

sharp and constant,

a knife against her skin,

a voice in her chest

that tells her she is never enough,

that tells her she must disappear

to exist.

Every meal is a war.

Every glance a judgment.

Every shadow on the floor

a reminder

of what she must control,

what she must erase.

Her mind is quiet,

but not empty.

It is full of calculation,

full of fear,

full of the ache

of wanting to vanish

and knowing that vanishing is

a careful, deliberate craft.

She touches herself and feels hollow,

her ribs sharp beneath trembling hands,

and the reflection in the glass

does not lie,

but it does not soothe.

It is the map she follows,

the path she has carved

from absence and silence.

Even sleep is difficult.

Her dreams are full of eating,

of fullness,

of bodies she cannot bear to be,

and she wakes shaking,

hungry for control,

hungry for the emptiness

that makes her feel alive.

She moves through the world

like a shadow,

thin, precise,

fragile,

and yet she carries storms inside,

storms of fear, of need,

of hunger that is more than flesh.

She carries them quietly,

always,

and the world never notices

until the storm is too strong to hide.

The anorexic she lives between breaths,

between meals,

between shadows,

her body a map of absence,

her mind a maze

where every step must be measured,

every thought controlled,

and yet she survives,

in the silence,

in the dark,

in the careful bending

that has become her life