One.

You didn’t choose to be born into this size zero culture

Yet here you are surrounded by an abundance of emaciated figurines

Waist lines receding

Only pretty girls are leading

No one stops competing for

Two.

Your family would do anything to keep you free of harm

How would they know that the mirror would be your murderer

The scale would be your seditionist

Your own thighs the traitor

Three.

When asked to choose between cake

Or cookies

Or ice cream

You say ‘all three please’

Without a second thought until

Five.

Go to school and learn all you can

Play nice

But if all else fails

The one skill you really need to know comes in the form of a diet pill and a naked juice for lunch

Get the boy to like you and does your IQ really matter?

Seven.

Is salad really your favorite food, little girl?

Eleven.

Middle school

Survival of the fittest or the thinnest?

Thigh gaps caged in by Abercrombie skinny jeans

Discover how to hate yourself when you’re

Thirteen

And you finally learn to burn down the house

That was built just for you

Stares become threats

Maybe I’m not so hungry after all

Sixteen

Mark your finger with a little red cross

That no one but you can decipher

It reminds you to eat a little less

Sweat a little more

Become enemies with the scale

With food

With your reflection

You are an organic human being

Wish all you want little girl

But tears don’t weigh too much

And the only way to feel free on the scale

Is to decide you don’t care

Decide to switch back to coffee, even with the cream

Decide to open your eyes in the shower, I promise your own skin won’t bite

Decide to wash that little cross off your finger

and replace it with a big red check

reminding you to give your body the fuel it needs to live happily

Be free

You see, we are all just primary numbers

Divisible by only ourselves

So look a little closer

Try a little harder to love the girl starring back at you in the mirror

And show those demons dwelling in your head that you just might be stronger than them anyways

Who knows, maybe one day

With a little food

And a lot of love

They’ll go away for good.