Centrifugal Forces (unfinished)

“I hate myself”. That is her mantra. She whispers it to the girl in the mirror “I hate you.” She says it to the woman in the store window “I hate you.” And screams at the child that wants to eat just one more cookie: “I HATE YOU.”

But that greedy, sticky fingered little kid can never eat just one cookie. She eats four, five, ten. Then she goes to the fridge. Sitting on the top shelf between some leftover mush in a blue plastic bowl, and a pitiful bunch of brown speckled bananas, is half a cake. The hands grab for it, rip off the saran wrap, and a finger swipes a trail into the rich pink frosting. Strawberry. With bare hands she grabs a chunk, and eats it. While the cake is being devoured, a voice whispers “Keep eating. No one is watching.” The “kid” is home alone and the delights resting behind kitchen pantry doors are enough to make her dizzy. So she keeps eating at a frenzied pace. She grabs a bag of chips, barbeque flavored, tears open the bag and mechanically shoves handful after handful of the salty crisps in her mouth. But that is not enough. “No one is watching.” A bowl of cereal. A loaf of bread. More cookies. More chips. Soda. Grape Juice. A tray of Oreo cookies.

After a while her eyes lose focus and everything becomes a blur. It is almost as if she standing above a centrifuge and looking in. She keeps eating. M&M’sabagelwithcream cheeseEasyMachalfofaleftoverchickenyesterday’sblueberrypieTwinkiesandtwohotdogs. “No one is watching.” She is eating, spinning, floating, dreaming.

After nearly wiping the once bountiful cabinets clean, she eats the brown mush in the fridge. It is disgusting, but she eats it anyway. She looks down, and everything is revolving so fast to the point of looking still. She puts down her fork, and notices the silence.

All of a sudden it is as though someone is watching, and she was found standing at the crime scene with a bloody knife in her hand and a body at her feet. The whisper becomes an angry chant: “Guilty.” Louder. “Guilty.” She goes to the bathroom, throws up, and passes out on the cold tile floor.

She is me. I have lived with bulimia for a long time. I have no recollection of when I discovered purging, it just happened.

Rewind to the the pre-teen years. I am fat and the tallest girl in my class. Boys call me "Ogre" and the girls won't let me cheerlead or join their mock pop band. I hate the way my body takes up too much space. During class, instead of listening to Mrs. Clark deliver the math lesson, I pinch the bulge of thigh that hangs over the edge of my seat, suck in my stomach and wish myself thin. Nothing ever worked. After school, i com home eat,cry,sleep.. The next morning the cycle starts all over again. I have no friends, and my pants are too tight. I am miserable. Soon after, I meet my first therapist.

Fast forward to my early twenties. I am thin. My limbs are long and lean, and my pelvic bones stick out like twin blades. Clothes fit better and I wear less of them. Men find me attactive. People gravitate towards me. Someone says I look like a fashion model..

She sits in a bar, drunk and laughing. The alcohol hits her head with a thump because her body is so tiny and there it takes less time for booze to travel to the brain.

She embodies red. Red lipstick, red low cut shimmering top, eyes red with broken blood vessels from throwing up her pasta primavera with heavy cream sauce. She remembers eveything she has eaten that day, week, month. That is what the disease does to you. She is on fire, red hot and cracking.

A man sits next to her. He is older, perhaps. Dark eyes, leather jacket. He smells like money. Lightheaded, this time she is caught inside of the centrifuge, standing still as the world spins around her.