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Featured Artwork: ‘Anxiety’ by aaakeith
Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders
. . .
Catherine comes over the night before
Thanksgiving with her mother
She was my first best friend
my unofficial older sister
the girl I wanted to be when I grew up
I was six
She was nine
We had just read Peter Pan,
tied quilts and pillowcases to our shoulders
and pretended we could fly
My parents watched me flail about from a few feet away
“She thinks she’s a fairy. She thinks she has wings,”
my mother shook her head lightly
My dad smiled.
“And she does, until you tell her she does not.”
Catherine moved away in middle school
I saw her only once every few months
The last time she came over,
she showed me that
she could fit her thumb and index finger around her left wrist
I couldn’t fit my thumb and index finger around my left wrist
I had just turned thirteen when
my mom got a call from Catherine’s mother
She had just been checked in to
in-patient treatment for anorexia
Why?
Why would she do that to herself?
I asked
She does not think she is beautiful,
my mom replied
Her mother came over for dinner a week later
Catherine wasn’t getting better
I found myself in the bathroom after the meal
brushing my teeth so hard
I could taste the iron of my blood
but nothing could get rid of the taste of stomach acid in my throat
I swept the floors
wrote “get well soon” cards that I never sent
and made sandwiches without
mayo, turkey, brie, fig jam or bread
I could fit my thumb and index finger around my left wrist
I look over at Catherine now
her arms wrapped around her tiny body
like an infant she is cradling
She looks like a dream
ethereal and wispy
beautiful and evanescent
She looks like a bird
lithe and gossamer
limbs delicate like
she could drift away
with the next breeze
her face gaunt
a ghostly mask
where once was a beam
the hair I used to braid
cut short and feathery because
most of it had fallen out already
She looks like she can fly
She already looks like she is flying
floating from table to table
as fleeting and as ephemeral as a first crush
never fully present
never lingering longer than a moment
There’s nothing about her now
that is reminiscent of
the girl I used to love
I think to myself,
this disease has taken from her
so much more than just 35 pounds
Her eyes meet mine
Brown eyes the color of
chocolate
cinnamon
chestnuts
beef stew
squaw bread
Brown eyes the color of
wooden chairs in a hospital room
hair that would rip out in fistfuls
bruises that looked like watercolor art
mascara running from her mother’s eyes
My lips form the question
I have wanted to ask her
since my mom got that call
Who told you that you don’t have wings?
