Do you want to be the fat girl
Amongst all your thin friends?
No, I didn't think so,
So don't even think
About scoffing that chocolate bar,
You weak blob of flesh.
If you even take in one extra calorie
Than you have already specified,
You are a failure.
You know by now,
EVERYTHING must be perfect!
EVERYTHING must be in order!
So suck in those cheeks
And take those diet pills,
Because heaven help you
If you don't perpetuate to the media's image
Of the 'perfect woman'.
You've seen them, strutting their stuff
Down red carpets,
Shimmering in sheathes of streamlined dresses.
Don't you want to be glamourous like them?
Stop thinking about food,
And start working out.
Doesn't matter if you're half starved,
If you pass out or cry all day in the toilet,
Its worth it if it turns heads,
If it gets you noticed.
That must be good, right?
Attention?
Instead of being constantly pushed
Into the shadows of anonymity.
If people call you emaciated, well,
They're obviously just jealous.
Put down that fork and pick up that cigarette,
No one wants your appetite and curves,
Rail thin is the way to go,
Sexy-skeletal!
Do that, and then you'll be just perfect,
Just what everyone wants,
You'll be able to look at yourself in the mirror,
And not be ashamed anymore.
Author notes
What amazes (and frightens) me most about some eating disorders (in this poem, annorexia) is the sheer control that the people who suffer from it put over themselves. They constantly pressurise themselves to lose weight and maintain weightloss, its always at the front of their minds. They calorie count, they ration, they weigh, they compare themselves to other people...it seems like one big obsessive nightmare. In this poem I was trying to portray the sort of controlling voice of annorexia inside a girl's mind as she looks into the mirror. I've seen my friend do it, staring at her reflection and seeing blobs of flesh that simply are not there, and vowing to herself to eat only an apple for the rest of the day. She is completely in control behind the wheel of her obsession, but it is a bad, negative, destructive kind of control. Watching her starve herself is agonising.
I also emphasise the distorted views they have of themselves. The world sees an unhappy skinny person and asks themselves why they must be that way. The girl (or boy) only sees a huge chunk of ugly flesh that they need to decrease as quickly as possible.
A contest entry
- & I was losing everything to be thin. by Page Deleted..
500 points, ended March 1, 22 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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have you had one yourself? because the empathy in this is amazing, the things you wrote I could not put into words but when I read them it's like you wrote them about me.
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Nope, but I have a friend with annorexia and I studied it briefly in college so I drew my empathy from there. Plus most girls have felt like 'the fattie' or 'the ugly one' or whatever in their group, so I drew from that too. I'm glad you took the time to read and comment
x
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Sad but true. . . It's worse over here.
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I'm not sure what to think about america, everyones either really fat or really thin from what i see on TV lol. But most well known celebs are american and they are role models for girls not just in america, but everywhere, and they're horribly thin and gross so I suppose it IS worse over there. MEH! Though we have Nicole Richie here and she is like a rake, and people fricking love her, all these little girls dying their hair blonde and stuff, clamouring for her autograph and going out to buy her latest clothes, and she is a 6 stone beanpole who lives off her dad's money and hangs out with paris hilton - i dont see the attraction, lol.
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