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a fool out of myself. I was fat and stupid. I should be embarrassed to flirt with guys. I should hide in the back of the class and keep my mouth shut because everybody else is smarter than I am. I had to learn to make myself more invisible. I had to be thin.

I only wanted to be safe. I didn't know it would be hard, but it was worth it. I was promised safety. I wanted my safety and I would work hard to get it. I was never safe though. Even after the threat of him went away, the world was still an unsafe place. There were still monsters, battles to be fought everywhere, and I was losing. I was losing because I was stupid. I was losing because I wasn't thin. I needed to be thin.

Slowly we become entwined. That sweet voice and I. I became her and she became me. Became or overcame? Which one I don't know. We were one. We were against the world. Together she would be strong. I needed her to show me how to be strong. I couldn't be strong on my own. On my own, I had gotten into trouble. She would show me the way out. She would make me safe again.

I began to wonder if that voice lied to me. Maybe I could never be good enough. Maybe I could never be perfect enough. I worked hard and did everything she said, to get the things I was promised. Nothing ever came. There was no happiness, nothing real, nothing safe, and nothing good in my life. There was only more pain and more fear. I was beginning to see how ugly and worthless I was. Still I tried. I tried to be thin.

It was obvious. I wasn't trying hard enough to be right. Maybe I believed in a lie. Maybe I was never good enough so I shouldn't have been trying in the first place. Maybe I will never be good enough. Maybe I should just quit trying, but I had to be thin. I wanted to be good enough and I wanted to like myself. I wanted to be smart, fun and pretty like the other girls. I wanted to be as strong as I knew I could be. I wanted to be the way I used to be. I wondered what happen to the old me. Maybe I should just disappear. If I were good enough, I could just disappear. I was always the same. I was always fat. I did not deserve to be thin.

"Maybe YOU should just quit trying. Maybe you SHOULD just disappear, but that would be impossible because you are fat." The voice reminded me. The voice reminded me that I had been trying all these years to measure up. I had been trying all these years to be good enough and deserve something, but I failed. I always failed. She was there to remind me of my failure. I was confused, she promised me peace, freedom and safety. I had been waiting all these years for those things to come to me.

I will never measure up. I take up to much space. I am too massive. My body is too dense. Gravity loves me too much. There needs to be less of me so that I can be free. I would be good enough. I will be thin enough.

"You can't possibly ever measure up to nothing." She reminds me.

"You were, are and will never be good enough for me." She reminds me. "You don't deserve anything I have to offer because after all you are NOTHING"

So the truth has been told. She has nothing to offer. The truth is I always had the power to be free.

No matter what that voice promises you. It will never let you have it. Even bone and dust have weight.

Learn more about this author, Erika Steele.
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