SkinnyTok would have killed me

if TikTok existed

at any point

when I was a teenager

I would have gone so hard with it

I once told a coworker

that I didn't own a smartphone

until my mid-twenties

and he said, so you just raw-dogged

all of college? But can you imagine

if I now told a Gen Z person that?

they would have an aneurysm

eating looks a lot like greed

but a hashtag to go with it?

I didn't suffer because of the internet,

I did that naturally, an inherent

serotonin deficiency

that followed me into the

grocery store and told me to leave

everyone is so quick to judge

and then they get angry

that you are not eating

and they are not skinny

like they're going through

the five stages of grief

as if you're dead already

I walked down a city street

people staring, so many eyes

focused on my body

which was disintegrating

a little boy stopped and stared at me

I've seen that face, in horror movies

his father turned him away

so he couldn't look at me

and I felt so accomplished

that I had become worthy, finally

it's all in your head, they said

as if I don't f*cking live there

with a ghost I gave a name to

when I was served dinner in my

grandparents' living room

and shoved the food down between

the couch cushions, and like a mirage

I saw sanity, but I was coming up empty

at sixteen, I lost my vision

temporarily; it had been two months

since I'd eaten anything

that wasn't a fruit or vegetable

and I crawled to the fridge

packed food into my mouth

until the light reentered my eyes

my eyes refocusing, but it

was still standing right in front of me

the ghost, the monster, the phantom

whatever stupid name

you want to give it, the one

everyone says is just you

causing problems, just

eat a hamburger already

the fact that this illness

is being encouraged on the internet

makes me sick, and I'm not

even a teenager, I'm recovered

which is the word they use

when a girl eats something

that is not the expectations of others