People tend to disappoint me. They are weak and dependent on one another. For as long as I can remember, I have been alone. I have been on my own emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and physically. I look around at my closest surroundings, the college I attend, the establishment that I work at, the inconsiderate and polluted streets filled with inconsiderate and polluted people, and my nest. I live alone. I am incapable of living with another person. I have too many routines, too much order, and an innumerable amount of secrets. I used to face the world with passion and intention, but with age, I have become more aware that I am on a different level than anyone I have ever had the pleasure or misfortune of meeting. There are some who I care deeply for, but not one of them do I trust. Everything a person can ever love and care for is transient. I am reminded of the validity of that statement when I think about my experiences. I’ve spent countless days in the depths of depression, with a self-image that is so disgustingly skewed, I have no idea how I appear in the eyes of somebody else.

The fact is that I am a raging bulimic. I have fought this struggle, hand in mouth, eyes in mirror, and death in mind, for twelve years. In my eighth grade of schooling, I watched a music video on MTV that portrayed a young girl with body image issues. She ate a piece of cake and threw up in her toilet. She stood and smiled in the mirror. How fucked, it seems, that the media can really destroy a child’s perfection. The innocence of being and growth is manipulated with altered magazine covers, nudity on screen and websites, the desire for a “perfect body”, and even in a music video. At the time, I thought it normal to control what I had in my body and that I could rid myself of food, keeping a lean figure. It’s not that I struggled with weight, as much as it was about the fact that I had a muscular build, and the girls around me were dainty, and had soft features. They looked like girls, and I looked like a boy. I wanted so badly to appear more feminine, and shrinking my size was the only way to do that.

In high school, I binged and purged once a day. I had to eat dinner with my parents, so I starved myself the entire day, and saved my appetite and destruction for the evening. I am ashamed to say how much I enjoyed the power of the experience. My body could handle it then, but now, I am dying. I have nearly met my demise many times. This past summer was the second time I tried to recover. The first time, years ago, I ate nothing for thirty days. I over-exercised and I was on anti-depressant medication, putting me in a bad place, health-wise. It just wasn’t the right time for recovery. Since then, I have made several attempts at not purging. I am now able to eat a cup of sunflower seeds a day, but I still get hungry. Twice a week, I will eat and purge.

A few weeks ago, I went to see a neurologist for the migraines I have been having, paired with intense sensory loss. He noticed something on my file. I knew what it was by the sadness in his eyes. I immediately started sobbing. He said: “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you this. I see here, that you were treated last November for chest pain and induced vomiting. Are you still inducing vomiting?” I told him the truth, upon which he responded: “People die from this. If you don’t stop, you COULD die.” He seemed so concerned, in the way that a parent is concerned for the life of their offspring. I lost it. I knew I could die, but the addiction to being perfectly beautiful is stronger than death. I know the consequences, and I don’t want to be like this anymore. On the other hand, being beautiful is more important than a lot of things, to me. I know where this stems from, but I can’t go there. All I can say is that there are always people around you, and you try to be perfect for them, but they don’t care. You change to fit them, and suffer instead. And here I am reminded again of my loneliness by so many experiences in my life, the friends and family members who were taken from me, and especially by the men who have mistreated me.

I think about him sometimes. I try not to remember the way his arms felt around my shoulders: my head fitting perfectly in the crook of his chest. We were parentheticals. He would stick his nose in my hair and breathe in deeply as though I was giving him a few more minutes of life. And in a short moment, all of that was gone. I tried diagnosing the situation. I would dwell on it any minute I could. I would wonder what I did. He didn’t respect my strict morals and values. He viewed me as an object. He was never interested in my life, my dreams, my achievements, my failures, even. He wouldn’t engage me in conversation. He was selfish. I was exhausted. I stopped talking to him, in an effort to rid myself of any dependency I was beginning to attain. I walked away without ever getting an answer, but I at least still have my dignity.

So I return to the things that nag at my heart, like the struggle in my faith, and the creaks in the floorboards of my lonely steps, the laughter of friends on the sidewalk outside of my apartment, and the cars that pass by, violently shaking my insides with the jubilant tune of some new, hip artist.

I am comfortable, here, though, in my nest; piece-made with gifts, thrifts, and materials left by others. I have no attachment to the ingredients of it. I just like being in a place that is colorful and orderly. I stack books diagonally atop one another. I fill bowls with buttons and beads. An altar by the windowsill holds a homemade smudging faggot I collected of twigs, eucalyptus, and oiled incense ashes, bound together with hemp twine. I burn it to cast away the negative energy that collects after a lover is gone. Though this time, a bit of it still lingers, as I picture my nude body standing before the window, captivated by the moonlight. There, I thought of what I’d been through, wanting to recover, but needing to be what he truly desired. I stretched my arms out and closed my eyes, expelling my air with each hanging word: “Venus, Goddess of beauty, Goddess of power, Goddess of women, Goddess of love, transform me in your image. This is my will.”