Ana

In December of 2016, I met Ana. She promised me that she could make me beautiful. That I could be skinny, just like those cover girls. That I could have anything my heart desired. She promised that she could make me perfect. So, true to her word, she made me skinny, sort of. I went running, and dieted. I made goals for sit ups and mile points. I worked myself to exhaustion and ended every day on the scale with a measuring tape in my hand. I recorded my weight loss, and physical accomplishments. I cut lunch out of my daily routine, and for the first time someone noticed a difference. I was “Fading” as she put it. I had stopped eating, smiling and talking. I spent breaks crying on the bathrooms, and I wanted to die. She, Ana, followed me everywhere, accompanying me to meals and to the bathroom afterwards where I puked up what I had eaten. She closely monitored my behavior, and eating habits at parties, and forced me to lie at doctors appointments. To lie to my friends. To put on a fake smile every day, and hide the cuts she so carefully carved on my wrists, and to say “I’m fine” But fine is just another word for broken, another way to scream for help without making a sound. A plea for someone to look me in the eye and say no you are not! It is just another hopeless attempt to communicate that I feel hopeless, helpless, worthless. It is my dying attempt to say that I am as far from okay as a can get. But instead of saying these things, I just smile and say, “I’m fine” Because Ana’s nails are digging into my wrist, telling me it’s time to step away from those around you, they don’t want you anyways, just get out. So, I get out. I leave, because sometimes that’s what you have to fucking do. Sometimes you just have to get up and leave everyone, and everything behind. But no matter how far I go, no matter how fast I run, no matter how much I laugh, and write, and read, and live, she’s always there. She shadows me, watching me like a hawk, whispering in my ear, Don’t eat that. Do you want to be fat? You are fucking disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. And when I give in, when I let her inside my head. I stop again. I stop eating. I stop hoping. I stop living. And here I am, I’ve stopped again. And because of you, BECAUSE OF YOU ANA, all I want is to disappear. It’s not that I want to dye, but if I didn’t wake up in the morning that would be perfectly fine by me. I am trying to scream out for help. But your cold hands are clamped over my mouth, keeping my screams confined to my mouth, to my head to my mind. I am confined to my mind, and I’m tearing myself apart. Why won’t you let me out? I want to get out of here. I need to get out of here. Ana, please, your welcome is worn out, now leave. LEAVE NOW. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pulling myself down and apart. Please, just let me go, before I fall apart.