How Not to Say Body by Naomi Carr (17, California)

[Content warning: self-harm and disordered eating]

         Don’t write about it, and don’t submit it to lit mags. Don’t look at it in the mirror. Don’t dress it up, or dress it down, but dress it because you can’t stand to see it naked, open and exposed, hunched over the shrine of the unfiltered full-length mirror. Don’t wear makeup or chokers or rings. Don’t make silly beaded bracelets with silly little words. Don’t pretend to hide scars behind silly little bracelets— either do it, or don’t, but don’t pretend. Don’t learn to harm it, but if you do, unlearn it— or don’t. ​

         Don’t feed it— wait, no. Feed it. Starving is bad and any other weak adjective that cannot possibly communicate the culmination of hunger and sickness and grief. Do choose inexact words like bad to oversimplify the story because facing the nightmare you’ve created with your very flesh and bone is bad, or at the very least, too hard to face. Don’t worry about word choice too much since I told you not to write about it. 
         Don’t love it, but don’t hate it, either. Don’t pretend to be ignorant of its power. Don’t ignore the power in sexuality. Sexualized, fetishized, objectified— do learn that these words mean the same thing, produce the same taste— salty, metallic. Don’t confuse these with bitch, slut, whore, cunt— do understand that these each have a distinct definition, a monosyllabic multilayered meaning. 
         Don’t lay yourself down before a man, or a boy. Don’t ask for it. Don’t drink alcohol in front of men, or boys. Don’t wear crop tops or short shorts, or do— but I told you not to ask for it. Don’t do workouts in your room since your parents can hear. Don’t quit ballet, but don’t starve yourself, either. Do workouts in your room only after quitting ballet. Don’t think that quitting is a means to an end. Do realize you have become the problem. Do understand that dysmorphia lives not just in leotards but in extra large t-shirts as well. Do contemplate using your hands to shatter the mirror. Don’t shatter the mirror— or do, just make sure not to cut yourself too much on the broken glass. 
         Do learn to stretch fingers thin, to span them around the circumference of your wrist— wait, no. Don’t learn the satisfaction of sharp bone under thin skin. Don’t learn to salivate over skeletons— wait, no. Do learn to do this— learn to salivate over everything because you do not eat— or don’t learn, since it will become a reflex. Do learn to listen to Blythe Baird over and over. Don’t pretend to relate to “When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny” the first time you listen, or the tenth time, or at all. Do acknowledge that you do desire some mutual understanding. Do acknowledge that you grew up, and still are, overbite and underweight. Do understand that you are not a success story, just a curve on a growth chart falling farther and farther behind. 
         Do, at some point, recover— or don’t. Do understand that starvation does have an expiration date. Do understand that sometimes that expiration date is called death. Don’t eat donuts, though. Do allow yourself to keep one fear food, and do make that singular, spectacular exception donuts for the hell of it. 
         Do grow bored of it, as starving inevitably grows boring— or expires. Don’t cut your hair for years— grow it out to be intolerably long, waist-length and then some, as a pastime. Do find ways of coping with the boredom of recovery. Don’t hydrogen peroxide your hair at midnight the morning of midterms. Don’t chop off your hair to scream to the world that the soft, fleshy vehicle of your suffering, the object of your hatred, loves, in all its hypocrisy, the soft, fleshy vehicles of the same sex. Or do, if that’s easier than coming out. Do come out— or don’t— either way, do discover that your soft, fleshy vehicle of suffering can, perhaps, be a soft, fleshy vehicle of desire. 
         Don’t let the Supreme Court tell you what to do. Do realize that this control isn’t new or surprising, really. Do understand how your government works, or doesn’t work— not like a well-oiled machine, but rather, like a starving, failing, soft, fleshy vehicle of suffering nearing its date of expiration. 
         Do understand that in your soft, fleshy vehicle, there is a small vehicle that is the driver. Do understand it is called the brain— here, diction is quite important. Don’t be surprised when you forget days, or months, or years of your life because this so-called brain uses the coping mechanism of getting metaphorically black-out drunk on a Tuesday and erasing so much of your life that you forget who you are. Don’t forget who you are— or do, neither option is easier. Do notice how there are holes in your memory, how your brain skips like a scratched CD. Do understand that your brain is trying to protect you from the things that have happened to your soft, fleshy vehicle. 
         Don’t judge your brain for coping in this way, unless you want your brain to judge you for how you cope with the burden of existence and the weight of the soft, fleshy vehicle of suffering slash desire that seems to suffocate you. Do not use words like depersonalized or derealized— diction doesn’t matter if no one’s vocabulary is large enough to understand why you can’t remember the last year and half of your life. Do use words like depressive episode— it is easier this way. Do, in parentheses, mention that this so-called “depressive episode” must be nearing its expiration date soon— either that, or you must be nearing your expiration date. Do understand that one cannot be both this sad and alive for this long— do use inexact diction, once again, because it is too much to find the real word within you. Do, at some point, remember again— or don't. Wait— no, do remember. Do, at some point, find the real word within you. Do, at some point, write a lyric essay about this, even though I told you not to.