Through My Eyes

She gave up on herself
Never wanting to stop
Then she realized how much she’d used
Food as a prop
She looked at herself
But this time she saw
Tears shed from her eyes as her cheeks
Went red and raw
Determined she became
It was not time to change
So she ate less and less
Put her legs to a test
Running wasn’t a hobby, not a sport,
But a plan.
“No one can push her like her image can.”
Her eyelids droop
Her shoulders sag
She stoops
She staggers
Her legs, she drags

She’s exhausted
She’s tired
Inside her eyes, there’s now a fire
She won’t eat
She’s “not hungry,”
Her sunken cheeks
Look less than lovely

Compliments, they fuel the fire
Still without them lie coals of desire.

She looks at herself
But she still doesn’t see
She look and thinks beauty
I look and see weak
She sees nothing but wrong
I close my eyes, clench my jaw
She runs a little more,
But she’s weak
Her bodies sore.
In her stance I see the ache
But she won’t stop
Won’t take a break
She can’t hold anything down
She gets sick and passes out

I sit at her bedside in the hospital. Squeezing tightly to her hand. She awake and I know who she’ll ask for. I reach into my bag and I hand her the mirror. She doesn’t hesitate, just stares deeply into it. She’s looking at herself, but this time she sees. Sees the skin stretched across the sharp bones of her jaw, sees the loose hair, and looks down to her knobby knees. Her head sways as the mirror slips from her fingers and shatters to pieces on the floor. Her shoulders shake and she begins to cry. I hold her small figure in my arms, afraid she might break, and I whisper softly in her ear..






“You were always beautiful.”