How can other people never floss and get no cavities
while I can’t go six months without something to fill, or put on “watch,” or root canal?
I floss twice a day,
Often three times
I’ve been doing it since I was 13 years old
And had 13 cavities.
That one dentist visit when my mom must have figured out
that something wasn’t right.
I guess you could say the anorexia went straight to my teeth.
But really,
I was in the eighth grade
And had lost 20 pounds,
maybe just 15
On a goal of 700 calories a day
Which used to sound like a lot to me.
I’d see 700 calories & anorexic together and think
“You weren’t really anorexic”
You gave in too often to really be anorexic.
You had to chew and discretely spit your food into a napkin
so your friends would stop asking questions
Like why you stopped eating during lunch.
Did you count those calories? The few that made it in?
You weren’t really anorexic.
You were just trying to be thin. But then again
It did hurt my butt bone to sit down.
I got lightheaded when I stood up.
I still made straight As
But I laughed a lot less
And my teeth rotted from lack of nutrients.
I never had 13 cavities at once again
but I did have two root canals
The dentist said he was surprised I never felt any pain
because the decay went so deep.
The nerves must have just given up, he said
Must have just given up.
I was lucky. I didn’t have to feel my teeth shriek but
My body was screaming,
my hair clumping in the drain,
my down fuzz growing,
my stomach growling,
my spirit withering,
my mind humming with calorie counts and
goal weights and
tips and tricks and a thousand thinspiration photos
from runways and magazines and a hundred quotes like,
“Thinner is the winner”
“I want collar bones that can catch rain”
“Every time you say ‘No Thank You’ to Food
you say ‘Yes Please’ to Thin.”
And the one that haunted me more than anything
from that Marya Hornbacher memoir about addiction and “recovery”
I kept checking out from the library
“If you knew something was killing you, would you stop?”
I think I started when I saw what it was to be a woman
When I saw the ridicule my friend with early breasts was going through,
When I saw that my hips would never curve into a pear.
When I determined that I had an apple-shaped body
with an unfavorable hip to waist ratio
and decided if I was skinny it wouldn’t matter
I was tall.
I could be a model
Or a ballerina
Untouchable.
And everyone complimented me
for awhile
Until they saw how dead I had become
“Kerri,” my friend passed me a note,
“I’m worried about you.
People who don’t even know you
stop me in the hallway and ask
“What’s wrong with Kerri?”
I tell them I don’t know, but I do.
You’ve lost yourself since you stopped eating.
The old Kerri is gone.
I don’t know who to talk to anymore.
It’s like you’re not there.”
That note, which I still have,
Breaks me now
but then I was angry.
Angry that everyone was worrying about me.
Like I didn’t know what I was doing.
I knew exactly what I was doing.
But I didn’t know what I was doing.
I didn’t know the decade of unraveling that would come after
I didn’t know that bulimia and overeating would follow.
I didn’t know that I’d catch myself
at 23 years old in the mirror,
Observe that even though I felt fat
I didn’t want to kill myself,
and think that was progress.
I am learning to treat my body like a temple
Not stuff it or starve it
Or distrust it
I am learning to
adorn myself in only clothes that fit perfectly,
that remind me what I’ve come to believe-
I’m worthy of beautiful things no matter what I weigh.
I am learning to make an altar of my flesh,
Not just the bones that I used to celebrate.
The skin, the fat, the muscle, the tendons, the arteries,
the vessels of my life.
My vessel in life.
We, us,
The ones who have had eating disorders
that weren’t “bad enough” for treatment –
There are better ways
to prove our strength than through starvation
The will to thrive
Must be
Stronger
Than the will to diminish.
Feel you heartbeat
And say it with me:
Thrive
Thrive
Thrive.
