Third Place: Lillian Lawlor, 10th, Madrid Jr./Sr. High School, IA, (Non-:iction

Third Place: Lillian Lawlor, 10th, Madrid Jr./Sr. High School, IA, (Non-fiction)

You grow to love the feeling.

The heartbeat racing, feel like you’re falling, feel like fainting. Feel like dying.

“I fear I’m fading fast”

You know you need the help. You haven’t eaten in three days, and the pounds are starting to melt off like butter in a hot pan.

You take a walk to a friend’s house and blackout. You make it there eventually, but at what cost?

It starts out as skipping a meal. Maybe two, if you’re feeling risky. You feel horribly hungry, but at some point, the pain subsides and becomes a wave of low, rolling nausea. You occupy your time cleaning or walking, or anything. Anything to ignore the pit in your stomach.

You look in the mirror and hate what you see. The perfect motivation.

You fixate on a flat stomach. At some point, through the countless blackouts, trying not to faint while you walk down the stairs, and overwhelming nausea, you get there. Effortlessly flat.

You hate to be sick, but love how you look.

So you grow to love the feeling. The heartbeat racing, feel like falling, feel like fainting.

"I Fear I am Fading Fast"

Feel like dying. The heart palpitations. The shaky hands., The visible bones. It feels good to be in control.

But at what cost?

Your hair falls out. The bones in your hips jut out. You look distorted.

Thinking about food makes you sicker than you are.

Your mom tells you to eat breakfast and you have a panic attack.

Your parents have noticed by this time. The scale disappears from the bathroom. Nutrition facts are covered in sharpie.

All has fallen down. You have been discovered.

At some point, you begin to heal. You can’t eat as much as you used to, but you try your best. You gain weight. Some things go away. Your hair stays in your scalp your hips rediscover the shape they were when you were healthy.

But the nausea never goes away. And with it, stays the thoughts. The evil little things that say,

“Don’t you miss the feeling?”

“Why are you eating?”

“You’re hurting yourself. You are unnatural.”

The feelings, the thoughts, they stay as a constant reminder of what was. And sometimes, as a lesson of what could’ve been.