Hunger
raw
inside
my stomach churns
it seems i can't ever get it to stop
to be satisfied
with the food that I feed it
feel so much fear around food
around eating
am I eating too much
or too little
will it make me fat
will it heal me
will it make me sick
all I know is since the age of five
I was put on diets
for my "health"
and my stomach would ache
and I would cry and scream
I remembered today
the wounds
how I would go to bed hungry
how I was threatened that if I didn't behave
I wouldn't eat
how I would store the candies
in my drawer
how me and my brother made a game out of it
how I would take the candies from my mom's purse
how my mom would eat it and would tell me that I couldn't
how my brother would cry out at night
from hunger.
I see patterns
calling out from the depths of my internal darkness
wanting to be heard and seen
maybe others see me today
and think that I eat too much
because I am no longer a size zero
more like a size 10
but really what they don't know is
how much I struggle each day
to feed myself
how much of a joy and healing it is
for me to buy myself cookies
and eat them
to enjoy them
I would love to live in  a world without diet culture
but alas I am working
on setting myself free
slowly
from its clasps.