The Way

The way there are bruises on your hips from sleeping on your side.
The way you’ve stopped sleeping on your side because of this, and because your leg bones were constantly digging into each other, and it hurt. Especially your knees.
The way you wake up at an insane hour of the morning, just so you can have the time to drag your weak and tired body out of bed and onto the floor to do your excruciating exercise routine, every morning.
The way you are compelled to step on the scale. Just to see.
The way the numbers forever repulse you.
The way you stand in the shower and somehow the water is never hot enough to warm your body in the slightest, but you stand there anyhow – waiting patiently for the chill to cease, until you get so lightheaded and dizzy, until it’s so hard to breathe through the steam that you must surrender and get out, before you pass out.
The way you are again compelled to step on that scale, knowing the numbers are not going to have changed.
And they haven’t.
The way you can’t pass a mirror without stopping to scrutinize every inch of your body, to assure yourself that you don’t really look that fat. Really.
The way you never believe yourself.
The way your legs are never any smaller, your ankles are never delicate enough, your stomach is never flatter, your love handles are still there, and your bones aren’t ever there, neither are your breasts (not that this is a surprise or anything, but still).
The way you have to feel your bones, to assure yourself that they are indeed still there. Because you can’t see them. You never can.
The way your clothes never fit well enough. It doesn’t matter that they’re falling off, they still accentuate your fat.
The way you have to try on nearly all of your clothing before finding something acceptable, something that doesn’t make you look too entirely fat.
The way you have to layer your clothing – knee socks, jeans, tank top, long sleeves, short sleeves, jacket, coat, scarf, gloves.
And you’re still freezing.
The way you pop pills as if they were Pez.
The way you know they do nothing for you.
The way you take them anyway.
The way you work 8-5 and still manage to take 16 credit hours at college, and maintain a 4.0.
The way you don’t mind parking across campus from your class because you don’t mind having to walk; there’s no avoiding the heinous cold anyhow.
The way you sit in class, wondering if everyone else is as cold as you are (though it’s obvious they aren’t as they’ve shedded down to t-shirts while you remain bundled up like a fucking eskimo), or if anyone else’s bones are digging into the chairs the way yours are, if they are in the same pain as you are, or if it’s just you.
The way you compare yourself to every other girl you see, wondering if they are thinner than you are (though you invariably conclude that they are undeniably much thinner).
The way you envy them all, the way you even so much as despise them.
The way you wonder what everyone else sees when they look at you. If they can see your bones. If they think you’re fat. If they think you’re thinner than they are. If they envy you.
The way you know better than to think that anyone would ever envy you.
The way you come home to distract yourself – sitting here writing, working on homework, cleaning, doing laundry, more homework, more cleaning, more writing…until you are so compelled to step on that damn scale again that you just have to give in.
And this time, there’s the tiniest change.
The way everything seems right in the world because of this.
The way you finally fall asleep at night, just to dream about eating (eating, overeating, same difference) and wake up terrified.
The way you have to do it all over again tomorrow.
The way it becomes your entire life.
And the way one pound can make you contemplate suicide.