Twinkle Little Star

A kind of darker poem, but I've been meaning to write it for a while now.

Her silent undoing
Her wasp in a jar
The thing that gets to her...
It is never far

Girls on magazines
Picture-perfect bodies
Splatter the covers
She prays to be like them
The girls with perfect bodies
Curves that every girl wants
Craves, desires
She'll stand in front of a mirror
She'll see a fat girl staring back
Pinch at the fat
She'll make sure she loses the weight

She wasn't born anorexic

But nowadays she suffers
Feeling pressured by the public
She only weighs ninety pounds
Yet she sucks in her stomach
On the inside she's dying
Lying to herself, saying
'Five more pounds won't jeopardize my health.'
One day she'll collapse
After too many sleepless nights
She can't avoid it
Spent bent over the toilet
Spewing vomit
Like she was an alcoholic
 Praying to a god she never believed in
To stop it
The girl hasn't eaten in weeks
She drinks water by the heaps
Now she looks like the skeleton
She sees in her closet
So close to death she can taste it
Her body and soul both wasted
Hates life
Hates everyone
Hates how she looks naked
Now she feels drowsy
Lousy
Thinking the world's better off
Without me

Her mother's broken hearted
Her brother says she's joking
Her sister cries herself to sleep
Because her father says
Her sister will die
The treatment doesn't help
The girl still starves herself
Losing pound after pound
She won't stop until satisfied
And she won't be satisfied
Until she is
Dead.

 This girl 
And many alike
Feel all alone in the world
They should know they are not
I'm one of those girls
Trying the tricks
Working on being skinnier
Always watching the scale
Watching the digital numbers
The needle pointing at numbers

This is her
Silent undoing
Twinkle twinkle
Little star
Your end isn't very far.  

Author's Note

So, what did you think?
This topic has been on my mind for quite some time.
+N+

Reviews

[Skye Fields]

So true. Thank you for writing this. And an extra special thank-you for the stanza about the family members; anorexia is such a deep-seated personal issue that it can be easy to overlook those it affects.

Have you ever read this out loud? It strikes me as a performance piece. No pressure to get up on stage, though.

I love the lines "Picture-perfect bodies / Splatter the covers." Such a vivid image, reminds me of an amazing photo I saw once--an anorexic girl lying on a pile of fashion magazines with a little blood in the corner of her mouth. The word "splatter" is great because it feels reckless, out of control, like the disorder.

It's also great how you turn something as comforting and benign as "Twinkle twinkle, little star" into something so dark. Chilling last stanza.

I'd read over this--in your head or aloud--for flow. It gets a little jerky in places, so watch word choice and cut out unnecessary words or phrases. You have some subtle and powerful repetition in here...maybe add a little more?

Brave poem. Excellent job.

[Dakota Jean]

Very touching. I know how this feels first hand and I can say you hit the nail on the head with this one. Keep up the good work (The writing that is), and stay safe.

[J.M]

Wow - very harsh, but also very beautiful and true. In a way i can't empathise because i'm not nearly as bad as that, and love food. But I know what you mean about hating a reflection and not being good enough, and I think you expressed that really well. I think the last three lines were the best, very memorable and hauntingly beautiful. Well done!

[PaperHearts]

Wow, this was a really powerful write! Having seen my sister go through exactly this, I really feel attached and emotional whenever I read a piece like this. I thought that you did a great job in drawing together all the complexities of such an issue into a really simple, direct, hard-hitting write. I loved the whole 'twinkle little star' concept; I thought that you executed it really well. :)
~PaperHearts

[Solitary Dreamer]

I know exactly how you feel

[Annie29]

Now she looks like the skeleton
She sees in her closet

BOMBbatious.
And yes, I did just make up that word(:

[Tessa Ross]

this is amazing.
having the reality of a girl caring so much about her apperance that it jeopardizes her health.
the end is so touching; so true, that one one hand it makes me feel appreciative of what i have-life
and on the the other hand, it makes me wonder if i were her, could i stop?

[Sasha]

:( I've never had an ED myself but I've had friends that did and everything you've said is so true. From obsessing with numbers to seeing a totally different person in the mirror to wishing they could stop and being incapable. Those whose families were aware also struggled with it and you did a great job bringing all those points across.
As for the writing itself, some parts flowed more smoothly than others and I enjoyed the splashes of rhyme. You did a good job.

[deeps]

Whoa this is quite the write here.
Powerful as well as deep.
I like this alot.