Collarbones

4 - Ribcage

My rib cage is just that. A cage that’s supposed to protect my insides from harm. But this cage is not made of steel. It’s made of bone, bone that if snapped, could be the thing that kills me. It doesn’t always protect me from the things that harm me on the outside. And it most certainly has not prevented the scars that linger upon my stomach and my mind.

There are a mixture of scars, some old, but most of them new. I can’t see them, but I know that they’re there.

Reminders of my past struggles.

Reminders of my current struggles.

Reminders of everything that I hate about myself.

While I think of the scars that fall in places that none have been allowed to see, I sit on the kitchen floor and feel the cool air of the freezer as it falls upon my pink skin. The lights from the refrigerator and freezer fall in yellow rectangles upon the tile, reflecting against the white surface. It’s almost calming in a way and I find myself imagining lying back on the floor, feeling the coolness of it against the skin that I had spent the past half an hour trying to rub off with a washcloth.

I want to crawl into the freezer and shut the door upon myself. But if I were to do that, I would want to wait until I was perfect. I would wait until I was as thin as I wish to be, when my hair was long and glossy, and my skin glowed.

I want to crawl into the freezer when I’m perfect. That way, when they found me, my perfection would forever be frozen in time.

I’m stupid to think that I can be thin, have glossy hair and glowing skin all at the same time. I’ve seen first hand the side-effects of anorexia and bulimia. They don’t necessarily give you what you want, but when you suffer from an eating disorder, you can’t see it.

In my case, it’s not that I don’t see it. It’s that I choose not too.

When I look in the mirror, I see myself as a chunky girl with lots of weight to lose. I see the lovehandles, the extra rolls when I curve my spine, the flab that hangs from my biceps. I see that fat there, convince myself it’s a bad thing, and feel the pressure to be perfect once more infect my mind.

As I sit on the floor, I decide that it’s time to start dieting again. I’m not sure what exactly my diet will be, but I know that my parents are well aware of my condition, they’ll be watching carefully. There won’t be anymore eating and then throwing up in the bathroom. I’ll have to return to my old schedule, to wait until they were locked in their room with the air conditioning cranked.

My brother won’t know the difference. He sleeps like a log, hardly breathes, and doesn’t wake up until way past noon. I think part of his problem is that he spends too much time in his room, flipping through dirty magazines and smoking pot. His room smells of weed and sex.

The bathroom smells like vomit and blood.

There’s no denying that we are beyond fucked up.

As I sit there, I look into the refrigerator, searching for something to snack on. As I slide the vegetable drawer open, I pull out a bag of carrot sticks. Looking down at them, I untie the twisty and drop it on the floor. I scoot back across the floor, pressing my back against the open freezer and feel the burn of the coolness as it travels along my raw skin. I close my eyes, fish a carrot out of the bag, and begin to munch.

Sometimes, this whole being perfect thing sucks.

I’m about a third of the way through the bag of carrots, crunching along, when I hear footsteps on the stairs. I freeze, eyes staring wide as I watch to see who comes down the steps. I slide over and try to ease the freezer shut as quickly and quietly as possible. I’m in the midst of pushing myself to a standing position when I hear my brother’s voice on the stairs.