I don’t remember the first time I laid eyes on you.

Looking back, you existed in more subtle clues;

an invisible presence, a lack of something nameless, a shadow,

a slowly fading light combined with increasingly pronounced bones.

A parasite, attaching to her appetite,

ensuring she never ate at the table alone.

You were little but fierce, persistent company, a nag,

like a cute puppy with separation anxiety.

Totally harmless at first sight;

we didn’t see you coming till playtime became a hard bite that broke the skin.

Was it the criticism laced in Mum’s opinion

that she might’ve carried a bit of weight back from holiday?

Was it school friends, was it a trend?

Was it society, was it from growing up in our family?

How did you get here, who invited you for tea?

If you were a beggar on the street I would not give you money,

no matter how frozen and wet and dirty,

no matter how the sorrow in your eyes still sparks my empathy

you deserve to sleep out in the cold without a home

because I know now how you prefer your clothes baggy,

your stomach empty

and your lovers skinny.

I’ll tell passers-by to keep hold of their pounds, keep on walking

to their intended destination and not to feel guilty,

not end up sectioned in hospital,

not going round and round in constricting circles

as the staff repeatedly tell her to stop exercising and sit down.

I feel like I failed her,

but at ten years old and six years her younger

I didn’t know how to stop an eating disorder

and it takes a doctor to bring back dying organs from failure.

I missed her home-cooked lasagne

as dinner time became plates hurling passed my ear,

cheesecake splattered across the wallpaper, spreading out the calories;

wasted food, wasted body, famished personality.

My childhood therapist asks me to sketch you in pencil

and I create a monster, with Mr Tickle limbs

and a giant cavity where the mouth should be,

a black hole swallowing all her energy. I draw on tiny eyes

whilst explaining how she cannot see the emaciated shape of her thighs.

I’m asked to imagine you are a person and together we’ll send you a letter –

“What would you say to this demon, Roz, if you could make this all better?”

I grip the pen and write three naive lines on the paper –

‘Dear Anorexia,

pick on someone your own size

and please stop eating my sister.’

Each week had a theme:

cheese, pasta, chocolate, cream –

an adolescent’s carbohydrate diet dream.

Sourcing the best local ingredients

from the fresh fruit and veg aisle at Safeway,

she became Gordon Ramsay whipping up a feast of mashed potato

with the perfect ratio of green beans to gravy,

rolling the shortest of shortcrust pastry

for her savoury tart recipe had to be better

than those shop bought frozen pies from Linda McCartney.

This chef’s stained apron was miles away

from the ballet-dancing teenage girl asking

“Jeeves, are there calories in toothpaste?”

Who stole the spare house key

and snuck out of school early

just to have ten minutes alone

to inhale a few rounds of toast before her Mum got home.

“Where’s the cooking you made in food tech today?”

“I accidentally left it at school,

tripped over Emma’s bag and it spilled,

had to leave it to cool,

bought the wrong flour,

the milk had gone sour and no one had spare,

the tin was too small,

it was too heavy to carry,

I burned the top of the brownies,

the sauce curdled and split…”

Whatever you say, don’t say you ate it.