Hunger

*NOTE: The author of this piece wishes to remain anonymous.

“Fatima, are you sure you’re not hungry?” My mother repeated, her eyes fixated on where I was lying down on my bed, hidden beneath countless bedsheets, waiting for my response. I stared back at her with rage, with turmoil, because how dare she ask me that? How dare she utter those words knowing full well that it did nothing but bring me to tears?

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I rolled my eyes, slowly pushing myself off of the surface of my bed and moving away from where she stood, “I’m not hungry.”

“Don’t lie to me,” She gave me a firm look, tightening her lips into a thin line in an attempt to dismantle the barriers that I had been slowly cultivating around myself. But the barriers and walls I was building were impenetrable, not even the person I loved most in this universe could subjugate them.

My patience thinned by the second, dissipating along with whatever composure I was desperately holding onto. Being bombarded with violent thoughts that never ceased about food and eating and the incessant sound of my stomach begging for me to feed it is one thing. Interrogations by my mother made it far worse.

Consumed by exasperation, I barked at her, demanding that she left me alone. Her response was the same tired look I had become familiarized with. The pain that traced her countenance made her appear much older than what she truly was. She knew this scenario all too well. I knew this scenario all too well. It happened every day.

But I didn’t lie to her. Not even slightly. I wasn’t hungry.

I began to circle my room in contemplation, mindlessly reciting the numbers that roamed my mind, the values of each calorie and gram of fat that made up all of the sustenance that was vital for my survival but was far too terrified to pass through the sealed gates of my lips. My mother stood and watched. What else could she do?

It had been seven hours since my first meal of the day - a green apple. Should I go and eat now? Should I drag it out for a few more hours? Maybe I can go get another bottle of water and down that instead? Should I eat? Could I eat?

For a split second, my eyes fell upon the sight of my reflection as I passed by the mirror I had positioned so complacently in my room for the very specific purpose of scrutinizing every inch of myself. One glance at the image that reflected off of its surface was enough to rid me of the notion of even possibly consuming a grain of salt. How are you going to eat when you look like that?

The sight of my body baffled me completely. How I had managed to stay so large, so round and so consuming of space that I did not want to take up confounded me. My left fingers unconsciously wrapped themselves around my right wrist, measuring its circumference and ensuring that it hadn’t somehow expanded.

“That’s it,” A loud huff emitted from my mother, “I’m going to take this mirror out of your room tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?” Bewildered by her words, I immediately turned to face my mother, my eyes conquered by incredulity, “You’re going to take my mirror away? And why exactly would you do that?”

“Fatima,” She hissed behind her gritted teeth, her eyebrows furrowed and vexation returning into her eyes as it so often did, “You need to stop doing this.”

“Doing what?” My reply was fiercer, louder. It boomed within the walls of my bedroom, which seemed to be getting closer, larger and far more domineering with every second that passed.

“Looking at yourself in the mirror all the time, constantly checking how you look,” She groaned, running her fingers through her hair as I used my own to measure the size of my wrist, “You need to stop this, Fatima. I’ve had enough. You need to eat.”

“I already told you, I’m not hungry.”

“You are. Now, stop lying.”

Mama was right when she said I needed to eat. I was so malnourished I could see stars in the sky wherever I went. But she was wrong when she said I was lying. I wasn’t lying–I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t hungry at all. I was starving. ◆