iv.
who was it
who invented
size zero?
who was it
who promised
that if you got
to a certain point
you would no
longer
be?Submitted on Fri, 2009-10-16 12:55 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2391 from The Realm Of Possibility by David Levithan
Sitting up in bed, a little more anxiously now, I grasp the collarbone, so prominent that it protrudes beyond the edges of the shoulders, like a wire coat hanger suspending this body, these bones. Beneath it, the rows of ribs, deeply corrugated (and the breasts, which I don't inspect). Then I press the back of my neck and as far down my spine as I can, to make sure the vertebrae are all still there, a row of perfect little buttons: as if they held this body together, as if I could unbutton it and step out any time I wanted to.
Submitted on Fri, 2009-10-16 12:23 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2387 from Life-Size by Jenefer Shute
When she shut herself up in her closet and starved herself to death, people were shocked. But starvation was in her voice all along. That was the poignancy of it. A sweet voice locked in a dark place, but focused entirely on the tiny strip of light coming under the door.
Submitted on Fri, 2009-10-16 12:20 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2386 from Veronica: A Novel by Mary Gaitskill
Why? You want to know why?
Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.
Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all, "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and drink and cut because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.
Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.
"Why?" is the wrong question.
Ask "Why not?"
Submitted on Sat, 2009-10-10 07:19 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2381 from Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Two days later, two days before Christmas, I am judged fat and sane enough to be kicked out of the hospital. The plan to send me straight back to New Seasons won't work. There is no room at the inn for a leather Lia-skin plumped full of messy things. Not yet. The director promises
MomDr. Marrigan he'll have a bed for me next week.
I'm stable enough to go home until then. They all say I'm stable.
I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed sisterhood and daughterhood. Failed mirrors and scales and phone calls.
Good thing I'm stable.
Submitted on Sat, 2009-10-10 06:34 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2376 from Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out.
But it's a lie.
Submitted on Sat, 2009-10-10 06:32 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2376 from Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
As an adolescent, she realises with mounting horror that they were not kidding: for her to walk alone will be a fraught activity forever. Anorexia, bulimia and exercise fixations work off and numb the frustration of the claustrophobia that accompanies the girl's grieving realisation that the wide world she had imagined, and just inherited, is shut down to her by the threat of sexual violence.
If she were to eat, she would have energy; but adolescence is arranged for the safe venting of masculine steam. From athletic events to sexual conquests to a moody walk in the woods, boys have outlets for that agitation of waiting to fly. But if a girl has her full measure of wanderlust, libido and curiosity, she is in a bad way. With ample stores of sugar to set off the buzz for intellectual exploration, starch to convert into restlessness in her elongating legs, fat to fuel her sexual curiosity, and the fearlessness born from a lack of concern over where her next meal will come from - she will get into trouble.
Read more »Submitted on Tue, 2009-08-04 10:42 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2324 from The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
'For that couple of minutes she symbolized everything that is wrong with how we perceive beauty as a society, she was the store bought ideal that drives girls to bulimia and anorexia. She was the skinny thinspiration that helps thirteen year olds put off eating for just one more day, and so I walked over and punched her.'
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:31 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2174 from Lockpick Pornography by Joey Comeau
That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2105 from Wasted by Marya Hornbacher
It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2100 from Wasted by Marya Hornbacher
