eat, baby.eat.chew.please.I know it hurts. I know it doesn’t feel good.please.I know your hunger is different than mine.I know it doesn’t taste the same as mine.imagine you could grow up all over againand pinpoint the millisecond that you startedcounting calories like casualties of war,mourning each one like it had a family.would you?sometimes I wonder that.sometimes I wonder if you would go backand watch yourself reappear and disappear right in front of your own eyes.and I love you so much.I am going to hold your little hand through the night.just please eat. just a little.you wrote a poem once,about a city of walking skeletons.the teacher called home because youtold her you wished it could be like thathere.let me tell you something about bones, baby.they are not warm or soft.the wind whistles through them like they areholes in a tree.and they break, too. they break right in half.they bruise and splinter like wood.are you hungry?I know. I know how much you hate that question.I will find another way to ask it, someday.please.the voices.I know they are all yelling at you to stretch yourself thinner.l hear them counting, always counting.I wish I had been there when the world made yousnap yourself in half.I would have told you that your body is not a war-zone,that, sometimes,it is okay to leave your plate empty.
Caitlyn Siehl
eating-disorders, empty-plate, food, love, poem, poetry