I wanted to be a supermodel.

Who doesn’t, really?

I wanted to be gorgeous.

I was frightening

I was every rib defined, stomach swooping just under the upside-down ‘U’ of my rib cage.

I was elbows and knees thicker than upper arms and legs; wrists and ankles thicker than calves and fore-arms.

I was perpetual hunger, emerging like an old friend when the smell of food gave me the dry-heaves.

I was hip bones straining against skin, sharp.

I was cheekbones defined, dark circles against pallid skin, eyes sunken and hungry and searching, with hollow cheeks, shadows crawling from the precipice that was my lower jaw against my neck.

I was a spinal column erupting, each bony knob crying out in pain as it begged for escape.

I didn’t want to be slim and trim.

I didn’t want to be skinny

I wanted to be skeletor;

Frightening
And dead.