Learning to Forget

Katie Regittko

How do I learn how to forget

The past ten years of my life?

10.

I see trauma and fear

Not playgrounds and friends

Hands around my neck

Instead of linked arms and four square.

11.

I see calorie charts and

Scrapbooks full of emaciated girls

Not middle school and newfound hobbies.

Who needs a hobby when you’re

Flying so close to the sun?

Icarus did too.

12.

I see hours spent in the bathroom and

Dictionaries full of excuses

Not school dances and field trips.

I spent my first kisses

With death,

Not people.

13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

I can hardly remember my high school classes,

But I can tell you how long you can spend

In the bathroom after lunch before

Your teachers get mad.

Instead of attending homecoming,

I’m coming home to run three miles

Or binge and purge

Or stare at the ceiling while my stomach growls.

18, 19.

I see treatment centers and Ensures

Not sororities and college basketball.

My heart beats out of my chest because of malnourishment,

Not because of watching scary movies with friends.

Running on more coffees than hours of sleep

On more laxatives than assignments piling up

I know every bathroom on campus like the back of my hand

But I haven’t made a single friend.

Now I’m left with nothing but

Bad habits,

Regret.

Because instead of learning

How to play guitar,

I learned how to hide how little I ate.

Instead of learning to speak Spanish or French,

I learned the language of doctor’s offices

And the DSM-V.

And even when I want to,

I can’t seem to unlearn these lessons.

Yesterday I ate a snack with a friend and

Had to go to the bathroom.

I found myself hunched over

The toilet, seat up,

Because I was full.

Sometimes I have to will myself to swallow.

More often, I have to will myself

To get the food in my mouth

In the first place.

I’m teaching myself, like an infant

I am teaching my body to need

I am teaching my brain to want

I am teaching my heart to forgive

I spent the last ten years teaching myself

How to exist on nothing.

I am teaching myself now to forget.

-Katie Regittko is a sophomore from Garner, NC, pursuing majors in Sociology and Psychology.-