I Attract

I attract pain that steals my appetite

Until I can trace a finger across every rib.

Needles and scans find nothing wrong

So I’m left to become a skeleton

As they tell me it’s in my head.

I attract misdiagnoses of eating disorders at doctors’ offices.

I cry as the lava boils through my stomach

Doctors clad in white coats of ignorance

Write up a sentencing of therapy

When what I really need is medicine.

I attract second glances in grocery lines.

“Sweetie, being that skinny isn’t pretty.”

Well-intentioned words dipped in poison

Are spoken in a voice meant to drape me like a scarf

But they strangle me like a noose.

I attract concerned looks at restaurants.

Every order of water is met with

“Are you sure?” at least twice.

Wide eyed innocence scans my frame.

I fake a smile and order a side of fries.

I attract disdain from those I called friends.

“God, just eat. It isn’t that hard.”

I swallow glass shards of their popcorn.

That night as I lie in a storm-churned sea of nausea

They preen as if they cured me.

I attract pain that steals my appetite

And misdiagnoses of eating disorders

Armies of pills march down my throat.

So that the numbers climb on my scale,

But all they say is, “It was never that bad.”