i try my best to push past the intrusive thoughts, the image of carnage and cruelty that have been streaming into my phone since 2023, the trauma that has been running rampant in my mind and body for over thirty years.

the outfit i pick doesn’t showcase the weight loss.

today i take my vitamins and do my makeup. i promise myself ill get a solid meal in. i try not to be cruel to myself. i thank my body for taking me through another day at my very physical job.

i keep assuring people i am fine. and i think i believe it. but i have used used hunger as a coping mechanism most of my life and these days, i am starved of more than just food.

the smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes, the smudge of eye makeup near the corners, the dissociative stare when i’ve successfully turned the conversation into someone else’s hands.

once my brother asked “Do you not feel hunger, or did you learn how to get used to ignoring it?” i had been at his house all night and refused all offers of food. my relationship had been falling apart, my BD had grown crueler and crueler to me, and he noticed what this client isn’t noticing.

they don’t. i’ve been in denial about it but im shrinking out of them again. i’ve been brushing off my sister and sister in laws concerns too.

i’ve used hunger as a coping mechanism most of my life. my earliest sensory memories are of the painful nausea of a child who has not been fed in too long.

i shrugged when she asked if my clothes were fitting differently, pointed out the slight hollowing to my cheeks and thinning of my face. “Well, it certainly isn’t on purpose!! I have been eating less fast food lately, maybe that’s why. my clothes still fit the same.”

my own inner voice called me a liar without using any words, reminded me of the tears i cried sitting in the edge of my tub that morning, the tears i had been crying all week, the seventeen or so months since my appetite started dwindling.

“Have i?” the smile was fake and forced and i wonder if she noticed it didn’t reach my eyes. “i certainly don’t feel any thinner!!”

i wondered if her observant, analytical gaze saw past the false bravado and over caffeinated charm.

i though that was AU Shou Tucker