You Cannot Grow on a Diet

You cannot grow on a diet. You cannot grow while, at the same time, wanting to be small. You cannot grow upwards and beyond without allowing yourself to grow outwards.

Six years ago. A pudgy, rosy faced girl. Me, twelve years old. I had matured quickly, my mother would say. I was all curves, hips and breasts by the time I was ten. I bled first when I was eleven. I was a woman now, my mother said. A woman, now.

You cannot feel the sea air or sand on your toes or silk on your back or cigarette smoke in your nose ; you cannot experience life for all its beautiful wonders, and you cannot be the person you need to be for others, if you do not eat.

Fourteen, lying on my couch, feet up. Hand on my stomach, I can feel my intestines moving (or so I thought). I am going to die here, I thought also. I am going to die, starve to death with a cup of green tea on the ground and they will find me with dogs munching on my bones. They will find me and I will still appear full and round, as I imagined myself I was. I look at pictures now and my cheekbones stick out, hair is limp, collar bones protrude and I think ‘wow, I was so skinny’, ‘wow, I was so pretty’.

You cannot grow on a diet. ‘Die’ is in the word. They try to kill parts of you, cut you up, make you un-whole, while telling you that you are un-woman if your stomach hangs out. Unperson if you have a little pouch, little pudge, big pudge, medium pudge, why do I inherently say ‘little’? As if I am naturally, unnaturally trying to make myself smaller.

Sixteen, and I am running. There is nothing inside of me, only water and the cold winter air. I collapse at the end, suck the oxygen into my too-empty lungs and too-empty frame and I scream, because I could not go any farther. I go home, have a cold shower (it burns more calories) and get into bed and shiver. I am not cold. I am starving.

You cannot grow on a diet, although you may think your will is stronger for doing so. You cannot grow, you cannot fucking grow, if you do not eat. If you do not concede that you cannot grow on a diet.

Eighteen. I wretch over the toilet but cry only because I love myself too much to do this anymore. Somewhere, between the years and syllables, I learned to love myself. I am round-cheeked again and I am worshipped by the boy I love. I can dance and shout and I do not run anymore because good God, I hate running. I am still struggling. This is not the story of the hero, or it does not have a grandiose ending. I am living. I am eating. I am growing. For now, I will grow, and that is enough.