hundred years' war

every moment i do not eat there is a battle. don't eat that. how much fat? calories and calories. what time is it? what's left in the day? do i have to drive? how much is at stake? will i keel over. will this keep me from keeling over. for god's sake will it clear the dizziness in my head. 61,200 seconds in a waking day. 61,200 battles.

every moment i eat there follows a battle. mostly panic. mostly hating myself. mostly the expansion of time, of space in my belly, my thighs. in my brain the subtraction of time, flurried panicked thoughts coming too fast. the invading army, armed with numbers and fullness and scales and exponentially additional hunger. our side is not prepared.

sometimes i just crave normalcy, a slice of bread with jam; butter almond biscuits, uncounted; grapes from the bag to my mouth, not via the measuring cup. i want to not feel the compulsion to count the calories in a carrot. sometimes i just want to eat and not think.

why, on the exercise diary on the calorie counter app on my phone, do they not have a category for "frenzied pacing in the kitchen"? because maybe-just-maybe, with a touch of luck, a touch of magic and fingers crossed behind my back, i've burned more than i've ate.

but we know that's a lie. this is a fuck of a sunday. i can't read i can't write i can't sit still i can't do anything but consume, grapes and cigarettes and diet sodas and cereal and sorbet and strawberries and yoghurt and honey and those fucking god damn butter almond biscuits. all i want to do is read and write and learn and go and GO and GO and run and leap about and get going on life but i CAN'T, i can't do anything but go to the fridge for the 61,200th time today and stare into it, hanging on the door. maybe if i leave it open long enough all the food will rot and i won't have to make the choice.

i want to say i want to get better. i want to say i want this all to stop all together. but woven into the battles is always the fear and i do not exist without it. i could, say, uninstall that app on my phone and stop counting calories, i could throw out the scale, but i cannot stop thinking, i cannot stop fearing, i cannot stop poking and prodding and obsessing.

i cannot deny the fact that starving makes me less crazy, and purging, less concerned. i cannot deny that the lower the scale, the less paralyzing the fear.

i cannot say that having won one battle will in any way influence the war. that being said, the least i can be is armed.