Here’s the truth: the least I ever weighed was 161.8 pounds,
and as I much as I wish I didn’t remember that,
I also wish, even now, I could be that thin again.
In the morning I see my sagging belly—soft putty
like biscuit dough—and remember how I could stand
inside those numbers blinking on the scale,
feel myself vanishing, and love it. I don’t mean
I wanted to die. I do mean I wanted to change.
I do mean I deserved to suffer. Or thought I did. Or do.
Then, I didn’t think anything was wrong. I was losing
only what I wanted, becoming something better.
If I tell you I think I’m as happy as I am now
because of those months, bad as they were,
that even though I know I should, I don’t regret
the skipped meals or the runs timed for the day’s hottest hour
to sweat the most, am I healthy? Healed? Normal?
This is the part I wasn’t prepared for, that it would not stop.
That four years later, I would feel just as I did then.
When the flooded river sifts its scrum to my doorstep,
and the night freight yanks me awake with its bone-clack,
will it ever end? Tell me—am I still that broken boy?
