Is it really a life, what you are living?
A slave to numbers and hate,
Turning your body into a machine,
A strange reflection of your turmoil
Tell me, is this really a life?

As you count your grapes into a bowl
Are you really feeling satisfied;
Or as you sit at home denying yourself
The pleasure of company,
Tell me, is this really a life?

Pounding feet matching the stutter
Of your heart, and the blood that
Runs sluggish in your skinny veins
As you run yourself into the ground;
Tell me, is this really a life?

Talking more to the voices inside
Your head than your old friends
Carving away at your skin;
Destroying what little of you is left
Tell me, is this really a life?

Or blindly chewing and swallowing,
Knowing you’ll hate yourself
But needing to feel, comfort is sought
In the numbness of food;
Tell me, is this really a life?

As the inevitable urge overtakes
When you’ve lost control:
You failed, you’re weak and now
As you bend over the toilet bowl
Tell me, is this really a life?

You never stop to think, well maybe
You dare not: you’re haunted
By the idea your time is wasted
So you are wasting yourself
Tell me, is this really a life?

*© Tara India

Your tall body has always enticed me
Your long arms have kept me safe
Your scruffy beard makes me smile
And your smile makes me melt
Your hands hold mine and make me feel loved
And wipe away the tears

Enough of these superficial reasons
Your love has comforted me
Your humor has made me laugh
(Until I snort)
Your words have made smile
And cry
But always out of love
Your generosity
Has never left me empty handed
No matter how much I beg you
To keep your money for yourself
Your caring heart reminds me
I'm not alone

Somehow you stopped the shaking trembling in my anxious thoughts
You brought me back to reality
You stopped me from dying
You stopped me from hurting myself
You stopped me from starving
From expelling the contents of my stomach
But most of all you gave me hope
A reason to carry on

A reason to fight my mind
To tell the mirror it's a liar
To throw my blades away
And eat whatever I want
A reason to keep living
And to love myself

I know you don't feel good enough
But look at all this evidence
Change the criteria in your head
The requirement of "good enough"
Should only contain one thing
You

All you have to be is you
To be good enough for me
Because I ******* love you

Hello my name is Anorexia
I will make you an obsessive freak
You will hate yourself
I will make you hungry and weak

I will turn your meat to bones
You will lose excessive weight
You must be super skinny
Food you must hate

Skinny is perfect
So your diet is strict
You live struggling
Because you are an addict

Do not eat breakfast
The scale numbers matter
Do not eat lunch
Do not get fatter

I promise to make you beautiful
I am your best friend
I will make you so skinny
Even if your life might end

"You're too skinny",
says my love
just as the dawn
breaks through
the window shades.

The seconds
turn into sobs.
With every tear
another bone
protrudes.

All:
cheekbones,
hipbones
and ribs.
My rings
slip off my fingers,
jeans slide down,
the numbers
on the scale
decrease;
these moments,
a triumph.

There's no
stopping her,
no turning away.
She's taken over;
demanding:
SMALLER THAN SMALL.

I answer with:
obsession,
body checking;
an overpowering
need
to be weightless.

I close the door
on him
and the silly ideas
of getting well.
Turning to her,
we hold fragile hands;
I whisper,

"Together, till the end."

Stretch marks.
  Cellulite.
    Scales.

Want.
  Pretty  

Reflection,
  Is that really me?

Knife.
  Shredder.
    Fats be gone.
      For the better.

Please?

we are just a bunch of girls dieting because
starving is in,
emaciated is in,
you won't be loved if you're not thin.

Anorexia
is the most deadly mental disorder
and maybe that is why
I tell myself I am fat,
maybe the reason I cry
when I look in the mirror
is because there is
110 pounds
too much of me
95 pounds
too much of me
80 pounds
too much of me,
I will not be content
until there is no weight left to lose,
until this skin is turned cold
and falls off my body,
I will be
counting the ribs you can see
on my corpse.
I will make myself smaller
and smaller
and smaller
until there is nothing left
to take away.