Diamond Tears

Sitting silently by the window as she rested her head against the wall,

She gently closed her eyes as she heard the rain fall.

Thanks to the burning scented candles,

The air reeked of cinnamon and sandal.

But neither could she smell, nor see anything.

There was once a time when she loved the rain;

But, now, barely could she feel anything through the pain.

Her thoughts started engulfing her mind fast,

As she started contemplating and reminiscing about the past.

“Oh, look! Here comes the stuffed toy”, “Stop chomping, you brat.”

But the surprising truth was that she was never, ever fat.

She never really watched the way she ate,

And was at her healthiest and perfect weight.

But, alas. That couldn’t last for too long,

As she wandered off into the endless hollows of depression,

She just wasn’t able to stay strong

.

She was so afraid of being judged, and her insecurities took over,

She couldn’t get a hold of her emotions and they started to control her.

It wasn’t long before she’d entirely given up on food,

She’d step onto the scale every single morning,

And let her weight directly affect her mood.

If the number dared to climb up just a bit, she’d throw a fit.

Be it a measly hundred grams, she’d panic out of her wits.

Her parents were both working, so she could skip meals without them knowing;

But they couldn’t help but notice the drastic changes that started showing.

She kept herself locked up in her room all day,

“Don’t worry, I’ve eaten,” is all she’d ever say.

But her parents were completely clueless about the disease that had caught her prey.

Unfortunately, she kept getting worse by the day.

All she survived on was sugar-free sodas and water.

She began to dose off anytime and anywhere,

And her concentration span kept getting shorter.

Dead clunks of her silky black hair

Would be lying around the house, everywhere.

What started as just a healthy journey to lose weight

Shaped out to become a complete turn of fates.

Everything you want comes with a cost,

Because it wasn’t just weight that she had lost.

She had lost the cute dimples that adorned her cheeks

And made her look so gentle and meek.

She lost the adorable apples that decorated her face when she smiled,

But it was almost as if she had forgotten how to; since she hadn’t in a very long while.

Going to school had become a nightmare,

A five-kilo backpack hanging on her frail shoulders

With her having to climb four menacing floors of stairs.

All I could feel when I embraced her in my arms was an empty void of a ribcage.

She had bags under her eyes and her cheekbones had hollowed out,

Almost like a grown man, twenty years of age.

Her arms and legs had become alarmingly thin,

Her nails had become brittle and there were flakes on her skin.

Oh, how happy she felt as the number went down on the scale,

But she was just getting weaker and weaker with each passing day.

She was never “small enough” in her eyes and yearned to lose more and more,

Even though her body was practically wasting away.

After merely a hundred meters of walking, her legs would give up on her,

Her thighs would feel numb and sore and her heart rate would get irregular.

She could not stand low temperatures at all,

Her skin would erupt into goosebumps merely sitting under the fan,

Everywhere she would go, she would have to carry around a jacket or shawl.

When she went to the doctors for her routine nutrient test,

The syringe struggled to draw out blood as there was practically none left.

The levels on the report made the nurse rub his eyes before reading,

He said he was truly surprised at the fact that she was still alive and breathing.

The hunger pangs had made her whole body sore,

She’d clutch her stomach and cry like never before,

And her tears were not even salty anymore.

She had let go of all her hobbies and interests,

She just wasn’t herself anymore.

All she did was cook up lies to tell her parents,

Caged behind a huge locked door.

Her clothes kept growing larger and larger,

And hung lowly on her frame as if she were a hanger.

She was so envious of the girls who ate away without gaining a single pound,

“How I wish I were like them”, she’d think,

Her self-esteem and confidence had plummeted to the ground.

Only God knew how her frail body pulled through three hours of daily exercise,

She’d punish herself by adding extra hours the next day if she ever failed to suffice.

Social gatherings made her shake with anxiety,

After all, how could she get away with not eating her food

Right before the eyes of the whole society?

No one knew better than her,

What it was like to be looked down upon for appearance and figure.

She vowed to herself that she’d never judge by outward form,

Before getting to know a person better.

And, if you haven’t understood yet,

She had gotten herself caught in the vicious trap of Anorexia,

The eating disorder that ends hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

She had become so afraid of being bullied, that she ended up bullying her own self.

She had fallen so in love with her illness that she refused to get any help.

The most heartbreaking part of it all was that the same people who once used to fat-shame her,

Now ridiculed her for being “too skinny” and “thin as paper”

As she gazed out at the lightning, sipping on her third cup of green tea,

Realizing what she had done to herself over the past year,

She let her eyelids drop down and pursed her lips, crying painful diamond tears.

Here, 'diamond' is symbolic of how genuine and painful her tears were, huge drops that shone like diamond itself.

She couldn't reach out to anyone for help, as she knew she would still be judged for the way she ate.

She realized she would never be enough for the people of the society, no matter how hard she tried.