Sick

I'm sick of you Melanie. I'm sick and tired of this.

It's Monday, Labor Day, because otherwise I would be just leaving a crowded lunch room and not standing naked in front of the mirror, examining myself in a way that would be considered anything but normal (and maybe not even healthy).

Sunlight hits my skin, not warming it any way because the fan is on its highest setting, covering up my music which is on low. I was supposed to have deleted it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do this yet. I'm sorry that my life revolves around my music, dad, it just can't be helped.

The sunlight slips in little by little through the slats in the shutters, which are open, but the curtains are closed. My mother has this paranoia that anybody passing by can see perfectly inside.

I find this to be utter bullshit because I've never seen shit though windows and I run almost everyday and make an actual effort of looking.

(I remember that when I was little, I would always watch people's windows when we drove through neighborhoods. I would always try and catch people doing different things. Checking windows, closing blinds, shutting latches, hanging lights, those sorts of things.

I never saw anyone.)

If people could actually see in my windows then maybe I would have a large audience of males jogging by all the time or slow moving cars with people in back seats with telephoto lenses aimed at my free show.

I find this utterly laughable, but she thinks that people will because the general consensus of the world is that people are nosy, rude and annoying and who am I to disagree?

But I digress.

I smirk as my eyes travel the well worn topography of my skin, mentally taking in this body of mine.

A body I've fought every inch of the way with.

I start at my head, once strawberry blond hair cropped short and left to its own devices. The pieces are wet and sticking to my cheeks, creating harsh lines, like ink off a brush, as stray water finds its way down my face before committing suicide off my chin like a stray teardrop.

Black eyebrows courtesy of my Puerto Rican mother, blue eyes from her too. Almond shapes from the Asian influences of some relative that no one can place.

Ugly nose genes run in my family. Perhaps the tendency for nose jobs has also been a passed gene. Only time will tell.
That freckle (mole, beauty mark, whatever) that my mother (and others) think is so. Damn. Cute. Just sitting ever so slyly on my left cheekbone.

Lips, thin, unremarkable, pale. Teeth amass with a tangle of wires and color and rubber bands, all supposing to help straiten things.

Tongue red from scrubbing.

Nothing worth getting your pants in a knot over.

My neck is negated of any remarkable significance.

It does its job, holds my head up, allows me to pivot and look back to see if it's safe to change lanes, you know, fundamental neck functions.

Some people have elegant little swan necks that look like they shouldn’t be able to support their stupid dumb heads and those lucky people enjoy pinning their hair up and showing it off. (Supposedly this is attractive.)

I'm not some people.

Collarbones that are barley visible when they were once so prominent, tan lines crisscrossing over boney shoulders, leading the eye to my left boob that’s obviously bigger than the right.

The doctors assure me I'll grow into it.

(Well maybe I don’t want too! Maybe the idea of bags of fat hanging off the front of my formerly-flat-chest disgusts me!)

And to think; there was a time not long ago that my ribcage stuck out further than anything and some kid asked me why my boobs were so low. I replied that that was my fucking ribcage before running away so I wouldn’t get in trouble with the kid's mother.

I grimace in annoyance of the memory and continue my analysis.

Freckles, freckles, freckles.

The telltale sign of a native Floridian.

I follow their sporadic line down my arms, past limbs that are not what they were, then the wrist that looks sickly when covered by a long sleeve. They're small and un-proportional to the rest of my now not-so-thin arm, more often than not covered in penned notes to myself.

(Notes that get me in trouble, because to hell if I write on my skin, right Dad?)

Fingers with knuckles that will never crack, even when I beg them, after playing too much piano or guitar; calluses and nothing but skin and bone.

Back up my arms, down that valley between breasts, pale and untouched, unmarked, white as fuck.

Down under the final curve, to the place where my ribcage protrudes, ribs visible now that I'm wearing nothing, but pretty much indiscernible any other time.

(Like a hidden secret. A surprise inside.)

Further investigation leads the crease in my skin where I perpetually slump over, ribcage forming a permanent line, harsh, but a reminder that I could end up like those hunched over old ladies, or have really bad back problems. Just like my lesbian aunt.

I like my waist.

I like my bellybutton.

I have two freckles (beauty marks, moles) right by it that give it just the right amount of cuteness, but (perhaps much later in life) could also give lovers ideas.

(I have too many fantasies.)

It's flat, that expanse of skin below my bellybutton. The space between my hipbones.

(What lies below that, my most secret place, is of no concern to me.)

I'm thankful at least for that, but then hatred sets in, ruthless and demanding.

They are new, they are curvy, they are part of a women's body.

Something that I clearly, at 17, do not need nor want.

I wasn’t supposed to have curves. I wasn’t supposed to hit 120 lbs. I wasn’t supposed to be beyond that.

I wasn’t supposed to have thighs riddled with stretch marks and self loathing. Skin that I once punished with razorblades and sharp, hating, fingernails, fighting dirty years later.

Retribution of the lowest kind. Aiming at my shaky self-esteem.

Finding ways to destroy my carefully built confidence with pictures of impossibly skinny girls I can no longer consider myself in league with.

Taunting me with cute clothes for the beanpoles while I stand in want in the background.

(I'm so sick of them. So sick and tired of those little girls with lithe limbs laughing, smiling, mocking.)

Blessing my mother with three skinny daughters. And one curvy.

(As if once abused bodies have control over fate.)

I used to not care about those things, but I've been ruined.

Slowly emerged into this pit full of fiction and photo editing, bombarded with images until my head is covered and I cannot get out.

I've tired. I've really tried, you know?

Changed my eating habits, run when work permits.

Joined track.

I've thought about eating disorders.

How wonderful it would be if I could simply make myself not eat.

How brave, how proud of my self control, would I be if I had the courage to stick my finger down my slick esophagus, forcing the food I've so greedily consumed back up.

But no.

Instead I've succeeded in making myself a shaken nervous wreck, scared of the slightest deviation in my life's schedule.

Eating like a bird, then wishing I hadn’t, mind warped by self-loathing and too thin females.

My not eating causing my body to turn inwards and start shutting down.

No longer able to eat anything (even if I wanted too) for fear of my body's instantaneous rejection.

I clench my hand closed, angry at my broken, ugly body.

It's an ancient cliché battle that I have; the one against my very own flesh and blood.

But no, don’t get me wrong.

I'm not sick like them.

This has nothing to do with being skinny.

This has nothing to do with wanting to be them.

It has everything to do with being happy.

(It's reached the point where I'm going to parties and sleepovers I would otherwise avoid, for the off chance I might see someone's figure in a way that’s otherwise impossible at school, just for the sake of comparison.
Because if I'm skinnier than her then think of the other girls I've got beat!)

It's practically my birthright, yes?

My grandmother was thin, my mother IS thin, my sisters are lissome and tall.

I've had enough; I just want to be fucking pretty!

I just want to fit in with my own family.

Is that too damn much to ask for?!

Indignation and disgust rises in the back of my throat and I place a clammy palm against the silent mirror.

(I'm sick. So sick.)

I haven’t even gotten past my hips and I'm already regretting breakfast and dinner.

(So very sick.)

Stifling a sob, I complete my mental evaluation, the scars on my knees and shins familiar old friends from better days and happier (skinnier) times.

The sun has shifted, my room no longer bright. I snap out of it, ignoring the goose bumps and nearly dry hair.

I straiten, smile mockingly at my own reflection, and turn away. I'm sick of standing in my own self loathing, pulling the towel back around me as I go. I've had enough hatred for today.

Until next time, Melanie.

We'll do this again and again.

Until we're happy.