A Status Symbol

I’m sick of being treated like a bully

For acknowledging one of the most obvious

Triple standards

In our shit society—

Anorexia

Is not only the only eating disorder people

Know about, besides

Binging and purging

(A variation)— it’s also

The only one

That garners any sympathy.

It’s totally reasonable

To most people

To understand why you’d want to

Starve yourself into a

More valuable state

Than it is to eat yourself

To a less valuable one.

It never matters

What the cause—

It doesn’t matter if a morbidly obese person

Fasts for two weeks

Or throws up everything they try to eat

If it “worked” or not

Is the only thing anyone will notice, and

For most anorexics

What they’re doing is

“Working” as expected

No one wants to believe or understand

That not all obese people are diabetic

That fat people can have healthy bodies

And that unhealthy people

Can be thin and desirable

Nobody gives a shit

When your body is just

A status symbol