Words by HH
Art by Arwen Verdnik
Content warning: contains themes of disordered eating and body image
You haven’t checked the numbers in a while. Do you remember how you used to watch them light up from under your feet in the dark, hours after dinner? After, you would quietly slide the scale back in its place, trying not to wake anyone.
On prom night, you danced with your friends, blistered feet and all, sharp corners and angles submerged in silk. Your mind kept wandering back to those numbers. When you got home hours later, there were cups lining the kitchen sink while the plates gathered dust in the cabinet. Such a lonely sight somehow.
For what it’s worth, you looked lovely then. But I know that it never lasted long enough for you and that each time you became solid again, it felt like a sin. It couldn’t be helped, you lamented in the end. Looking back at all of it now: what a relief.
What a shame, they whisper, what a waste, but you are already walking away. Even though your feet sink into the soil when you dance now, you feel lighter than you did before. Isn’t that ironic?
Here in this quiet space, allowing your limbs to unfold still feels foreign to you sometimes. You don’t always recognise your own reflection. She doesn’t always look like you – neither did that airy creature draped in silk.
Some days, you still spend too long in front of the rice cooker. Scooping less, and then more, and then less again into your bowl, hoping no one notices. In some ways you’re not so different to how you were back then, but now your footsteps leave marks on the ground and you start to feel like you exist.
Doesn’t that make you a little hopeful?
