Swallowing Death

I stand in front of the mirror and an unknown reflection stares back at me. My eyes flicker back and forth taking this new person in. She's the same height as me she has the same eyes and even the same freckles but her face looks worn and tired, her figure has grown fuller and the once hour glass shape I loved so much is replaced with excess skin and saggy lumps.

Where toned muscle once flexed a bat ready to swing now buried under fatty tissue and stretch marks. Her breathing is heavy and her body aches she can no longer stand straight and instead hunches. If I'm quiet I can hear a ticking noise no doubt coming from the clock. The clock that says when your time is up, I can hear it now just a few more clicks and it's all over. Did she succumb to the depression? What was her way out? Did it end with a loud bang or quietly on the bathroom floor? No? Then what was it? Oh that's right it was years of watching the world pass by as she gorged herself to death on the only substance she knows. Where did it start and where did it end? Every day that passes is another one closer to the grave.

As a child I used to write notes to myself in hopes of finding it years later. They usually consisted of who I wanted to marry or that I hoped my dreams of being an archaeologist came true. It was so much simpler to have a childlike wonder. Instead of being lost from the world you could get lost with adventures like chasing Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer down the Mississippi or ridding the waves with Captain Ishmael looking for Moby Dick or my personal favorite making Boo Radley come out. That childlike wonder I once had ran wild with the stories and books I read creating those scenes in my head and even created ideas for my future but here I am today writing a death letter to myself thinking what my story will be. “She was great at breathing” is that what the tombstone will read. I'm ready to shed my coat of hatred and self-doubt. I'm ready to be the woman my childhood self would have loved. I'm ready to love me.