o1) Feel Her.

I can feel her calling to me.  Her siren song sung quietly in the back of my head.  She speaks of things that can never be--feelings that can never transpire.  I dream of a life sometimes where I cease to exist as a sexual being. Nothing but prepubescent lines and corners, pretty in the way of tom boy ten year olds or feminine boys.  I dream of never having to show my body again--never having to touch a relationship again.  I am weary.  I am exhausted.  And she uses the time to murmur thoughts into my mind.

Don't eat that.
Don't drink that.
The hunger will make you feel better.
The hunger will make everything go away.


She operates in every bite I take, spurred on by my misery.  By every sharp word and cruel barb he lashes out at me.  I opened up my soul to him, and he accuses me of all the bad things I was afraid I was.  He hurts me, he says, because I hurt him, while claiming he loves me in the same breath.  My ex.  Thank goodness.  Things are almost over.  Almost.  Just a little bit longer, and i have no need to deal with this again.

But still she lingers.
Still, I find myself hesitantly stepping on the scale.
Seeing my weight.
Thinking about how low I was before recovery.
Thinking about how much I want to say...just...put down the food.
Drop it.
A little bit at a time.
Cut back on certain foods.
Certain meals.
Certain things.

Not out of desire to make people want me.  I find myself becoming so afraid--terrified--of the prospect of people being attracted to me.  I want to scrub away any beauty off my flesh and become something invisible.  Something nonsexual.  A being of pure personality and intellect and just child-like cuteness that has nothing to do with sex.  Nothing that will compete with other women, or lure the lurid attentions of men.
I want to just stop existing in a way that forces me to define myself by my body.
I want to melt away into nothingness.  Until I am skin and bones, and then I crumble to the ground in a pile of ashes and forget that I even exist.

I am tired.
I am alone.
And when I am as such, I feel her then more than ever.  My constant companion.  My quiet voice in this solitude.  My sickly Ana.

Hunger makes the feelings go away...