Slimming Down

Karen Carpenter, role model. Courtesy of Photofest

Anorexia’s not as hard as you think, you just have to get on the train. I know because I didn’t eat for ten days and I feel great. Not only that, but I lost the weight. DAY ONE: By 1 PM I feel like I am walking on undulating ground. I am ALREADY starving, so there is no way I’ll make it. There is a handful of rice in the sink from yesterday and it has a delectable aroma. DAY TWO: I dream Cambodians are slicing gore off a floating corpse. I almost faint when I get out of bed. My breath tastes like old guy and my tongue is white. When I leave a party in a neighborhood I know well, I get literally lost in literal fog for half an hour. DAY THREE: I spend the entire day watching movies and grooming myself. I also clean my apartment. I am not a messy person, so this amounts to organizing my herbal teas. People call to invite me out but I don’t answer the phone because I am afraid I will have another episode. Oh, I didn’t tell you. Last night when a bouncer yelled at me, I cried. DAY FOUR: I get four more movies. I’m not hungry anymore. Tingles of pleasure move in clouds up and down my body, through my chest and up into my head. I am soooooooo blissed out. DAYS FIVE TO SEVEN: I am unflappable. People can say or do whatever they want and it’s like: [Here I am making a face like I am a mannequin and you can’t faze me]. I am really fucking thin too, and rosy like a newborn babe. I switch into a pair of wool pants I had tailored when I was 18. I notice all the flaws in the bodies of the girls I work with. Even the skinny ones have thick rib cages or boxy asses. Ew. Why would they eat? DAY EIGHT: OK, fuck this. I am going to die. I look like shit. My boss wrote “for God’s sake” in an email and I screamed, at the top of my lungs, “You asshole!” I am falling apart. Please, I so hungwee. Pleese… I need some-theen to ate. Aything would hep. DAY NINE: I stay home from work because I am not cool for work right now. I walk three miles. I try on some clothes. I’m less fat than I was, but I need to lose 20 pounds, at least. I buy a scale. I have lost 14 pounds. Shit. I’m gonna stay anorexic. DAY TEN: When midnight strikes I ream six oranges and drink the juice while standing. I suck the pulp off the reamer. Before going to bed, I’ve had 20 oranges. My ass is spreading. Anorexia is cool and everything, but I got to eat, y’all. I be hongry! CASEY KITCHENS