Content warning: Eating disorder

About a year ago is when I first met Ed. 

He’s the reason for all the pounds I’ve shed. 

 

I was getting out of a relationship, he was my revenge body. 

I didn’t know he would hurt me too. For me, I feel sorry. 

 

We were introduced to each other through friends of friends. 

He was tagged in photos of transformations and the one week juice cleanse. 

 

I’ll admit, I was curious, I slid into his DM. 

He immediately responded, started talking about my BM. 

I didn’t know that’s how he attracts teenagers, lying about concerns of diabetes in their later years. 

 

We started out casually but he pursued me relentlessly. 

I just liked the distraction, once a week, I took a progress mirror selfie. 

 

It got more intense, we started sleeping together. 

Afternoon naps from exhaustion, excuses and emails to my professor.

 

I wrote him little love notes, 

deductions of point twos and point fours. 

 

He took me out on shopping sprees, let me fit into anything I please. 

I told everyone he was just protecting my peace. 

I didn’t know at the time that he was a disease. 

 

We hard launched on Instagram. 

By then itself, I was damned. 

All the compliments, 

They made me commit to him. 

 

My aunts all swooned and gasped. 

“How did you get like this?” they asked. 

“Just in college,” I always said. 

I’d never let them leave their fat, happy marriages for an affair with Ed. 

 

Because now that the honeymoon phase was over, 

I saw him for what he’d really become: my owner. 

 

He needed control, 

measured every spoon in the bowl. 

Counted my almonds, 

added them up in notebook margins 

and didn’t let me see my friends. 

We ate dinner at five, 

never went outside, 

were energetically depleted and nutritiously deprived. 

 

The first time I broke up with him, I relapsed a lot. 

Took all my healing advice from RecoveryTok. 

It told me to hate him, and his culture of diet, 

but I missed him deeply with every forced bite. 

 

The posts said to detach my worth from my size, 

but I couldn’t see myself any other way, than how I looked in his eyes. 

The podcasts said I shouldn’t want to be skinny, 

but I still needed the attention he would give me. 

I paid a therapist to tell me I was pretty. 

That nearly fixed me, but actually, not really. 

 

For the next few months, I was still obsessed 

but I stopped myself from sending him a text. 

I dated other dudes 

and ate good foods. 

I moved on too fast,

it didn’t last. 

 

When I met him again, he looked different, 

explained that he still wanted to be my friend. 

Everybody knows 

how that story goes. 

 

He overcompensated to show me this time he had the best intention. 

I ate anything in the kitchen, 

a jarring transition. 

Emotional scars amounted to 

mounds of candy bars. 

This romance wasn’t as pretty outwardly, to binge is quite cringe. 

Either way, 

his wish 

was to know I’m still his. 

 

I was, and so I stayed with him in secret for a quarter. 

I knew he hadn’t changed much though, he was still a fucking disorder. 

 

I left him for good recently; walked out of his apartment in the pursuit of happiness. 

It’s a path where I celebrate every step as progress. 

I forgive myself for having Ed, 

only count my blessings now 

for not being dead. 

 

He had the highest mortality rate, I’m glad I’m still alive. 

I was just a girlfriend, but I know he’s had wives. 

My sisters, some of whom didn’t survive. 

 

I still find his cologne on my clothes, 

the memory lives under my nose. 

I notice the absence of his arms around my waist, 

but I like the color in my face.

 

I won’t go back to him, but I’ll keep his hoodie 

if I can’t get rid of it yet. 

He taught me a lot about beauty, 

I’m trying and it’ll take time to forget. 

 

I can be highly disordered and very recovered. 

This is something I have recently discovered. 

Mental health is ongoing, every single day in your head. 

On again, off again with my toxic Ed.