A piece of writing

I don't really know what I was thinking.. it just came out.

When she wakes in the morning she has a moment of peace. Just a moment. Then the voices kick in, the thoughts, the fears. Am I thin today? Am I allowed to eat today? She lets her thoughts display themselves clearly on her face. She has survived the night, that is one thing to be grateful for. Her fingers spread slowly across her body, feeling each rib bone. They linger at her hip bones, she traces the patterns with her fingertips on her concave stomach, so that when she opens her eyes she can pretend that's where they came from.

She has to wake up much earlier nowadays. All the extra things she has to do. She swings her body upward and tries to place her feet on the floor. She misses, and her heavy head ends up back on the pillow. Concentrating hard she pushes the dizziness into one ball and stands. A skeletal hand extends from her caverns of her pajama sleeve to rest on the wall, giving her the support she needs to get to the bathroom.

The first thing she does is measure herself. Under the bath lies a measuring tool so powerful it can determine her entire life. The numbers are down again today. She suspects they are lying to her, everyone lies to her now. They say she's pretty, thin, ill. They just want to hurt her.

Weight slips away so easily once you start. Like the timers her mother uses in the kitchen, once you turn your world upside down, and the grains of sand start slipping through that tiny hole, it is hard to stop them. The weight slips away from her fingertips but she hardly notices anymore. Her life slides past but she is not living it. They say she is a survivor, but then why doesn't she feel like one?

After she steps off the scale she starts to tend to her wounds. Marks that pain have left on her. She cleans them slowly, delicately, puts antiseptic cream and new dressings on them. She knows she did them, she knows they are on her body, but she feels removed from them. She carries them with her like a broken lipstick at the bottom of her purse. Not even sure it's hers anymore.

Then she stands, frozen, in front of the mirror for what seems like hours. She evaluates and criticizes every inch of her body. Her eyes flick up, down. She doesn't cry anymore.
She starts to walk back to her room. Finger on a button. She pauses, frozen in time. Fingers change button, rewind, right back to the beginning of the tape.

Her face, close up to the screen.

"Hello Youtube," She whispers, not wanting her parents to hear from the next room, "I'm recording my day for you tomorrow. Time you saw what I go through in my life. This is for all the haters out there. I'm going to sleep now, and I'll see you all in the morning!"

Faces on the other side of the screen move slightly closer, watching their daughter's last day through her eyes. Tears roll down their cheeks. They are so glad she has done this, so glad they can understand, even when she can't explain it to them anymore.

They told her she was a survivor.