A Full Stomach Feels Like Guilt

I have measured my worth in halves— half a plate, half a bite, half a person. Chewing on numbers, swallowing silence, practicing hunger like a shadow, but it never fades. Fullness is a cruel, suffocating weight. A mistake lodged in my stomach, a constant reminder that I don’t belong. I press my hands against my skin, as if I could suffocate it, shrink it until it begs to disappear. I tell them I’ve eaten. I tell them I’m fine. I tell them it’s nothing— but nothing is all I am. Every meal is a war I lose before it begins. Every bite feels like a betrayal to the silence that feels safer than hunger. Every swallow fills me with dread, a dread that only grows when it sits inside me, weighing me down, making me feel too heavy for this world. And the worst part? I’m never full enough to stop the ache. I fight the hunger until it claws from the inside, until I have nothing left but this emptiness, this need to purge it out, to make it right again, to feel light enough to breathe. I don’t care about the taste. I don’t care about the burn. I don’t care about the sharpness in my throat, the acid that eats at me. All I care about is the relief, the only kind of peace I know. I rid myself of it, only to watch it come back. Again and again, until there’s nothing left to purge but the broken pieces of me. The mirror never lies, but it never forgives. It shows me the reflection of someone too much, too filled with shame to fit into this skin. I am too full. Too empty. Too much. Never enough. I try to hold it in, but my body is a battlefield. I swallow the guilt. I vomit the fear. I purge the pain. And yet, the hunger never stops.