Blythe Baird: When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny

the year of skinny pop and sugar-free Jello cups
we guzzled vitamin water and vodka

toasting to high school and survival
complimenting each other's collarbones

trying diets we found on the internet:
menthol cigarettes, eating in front of a mirror, 

donating blood

replacing meals with other practical hobbies 

like making flower crowns 

or fainting

wondering why I haven’t had my period 

in months

or why breakfast tastes like 

giving up

or how many more productive ways 

I could have spent my time today 

besides googling the calories 

in the glue of a US envelope,

watching America’s Next Top Model like the gospel,

hunching naked over a bathroom scale shrine,

crying into an empty bowl of Cocoa Puffs 

because I only feel pretty 

when I’m hungry

if you are not recovering 

you are dying

by the time I was sixteen, I had already experienced 

being clinically overweight, underweight, and obese

as a child, fat was the first word 

people used to describe me

which didn’t offend me until 

I found out it was supposed to

when I lost weight, my dad was so proud
he started carrying my before and after photo 

in his wallet

so relieved he could stop worrying 

about me getting diabetes

he saw a program on the news 

about the epidemic with obesity,

says he’s just so glad to finally see me 

taking care of myself

if you develop an eating disorder 

when you are already thin to begin with,

you go to the hospital

if you develop an eating disorder 

when you are not thin to begin with, 

you are a success story

so when I evaporated, of course 

everyone congratulated me 

on getting healthy

girls at school who never spoke to me before 

stopped me in the hallway to ask how I did it

I say, I am sick
they say, No, you’re 

an inspiration.

how could I not fall 

in love with my illness?

with becoming the kind of silhouette 

people are supposed to fall in love with?

why would I ever want to stop 

being hungry 

when anorexia was the most 

interesting thing about me?

so, how lucky it is now,

to be boring

the way not going to the hospital 

is boring

the way looking at an apple 

and seeing only an apple, not sixty

or half an hour of sit-ups 

is borin.

my story may not be as exciting as it used 

to be, but at least there is nothing left 

to count

the calculator in my head 

finally stopped

I used to love the feeling of drinking water 

on an empty stomach

waiting for the coolness to slip all 

the way down and land in the well

not obsessed with being empty 

but afraid of being full

I used to take pride in being able to feel

cold in a warm room

now, I am proud I have stopped 

seeking revenge on this body

this was the year of eating 

when I was hungry 

without punishing myself

and I know it sounds ridiculous,

but that shit is hard

when I was little, 

someone asked me 

what I wanted to be 

when I grow up 

and I said, 

small