i am ten years old and the neurologist tells me “the more weight you lose the better you will feel”
as if the size of my child body is so large it must be the source of my pain
and so i shrink it and shrink it

i am fourteen years old and i shrink it and shrink it
i am afraid of this child body looking older

i am sixteen years old and i am still in pain-
more pain this time, and so i must shrink
smaller and smaller
the answer, they told me
“it does not matter how small you get, losing weight will make you feel better”

this body is now smaller than the one i started with, and the shrinking begins to frighten me

i am eighteen years old and my body is still that of a child’s 
i have not allowed it to get any bigger, any older
i am tired of shrinking, i do not know how to grow
and so i shrink and shrink

i am nineteen years old and i am trying not be smaller 
i am learning it is okay to grow

i am twenty three years old and the days of getting smaller have caught up with me
i learned to grow, and found that i shrunk the inner parts of me
bone only grows for so long
once you cut down the root, it does not grow back

i am twenty three years old and i am frightened 
i learned to grow, and found that i will continue to shrink
as the days catch up with me