I know you better than I know myself.

I will choke until I swallow.

I'm starting to fear that I have no idea what or who I really am. Some guys at work joke around when they see my hair and piercings and ask if I'm a metal head or punk rocker. But I'm neither. I wouldn't fit in with either crowd. I don't really listen to metal and I'm a capitalist at heart. I get asked if I'm a lesbian probably more often than most girls do, and I don't think I am. Somehow, I portray a lot of different characteristics for a lot of different boxes but I hardly fit any single one. 

Then there's just my face and my figure that I can't quite accept. I feel like I'm made of all these big features, my nose, my chin, my neck and shoulders. I've always felt like I'm physically built too big and like I don't fit anywhere in the world, as if I take up too much space. I used to have a real problem dealing with this thought but I've grown to mostly be relaxed about the idea. The old me used to hide behind over-sized shirts and eat like a bird everyday to try to seem smaller. Now, I hardly give a fuck. I wear a bikini to the beach and tight blouses to work. I'm trying to keep less emphasis in my mind on my physique but the nagging is always there. I could always be ten pounds thinner. I believe I have a very distorted view of what I look like and I fear it will always be that way. It's hardwired into me to hate my body, as long as the numbers are too high. 

I wonder if one day I'll see a low enough number on the scale and I can actually be happy. Normally, I feel confident and attractive when I go out. I did my makeup as perfect as I could and I felt really pretty today. But later on, I started to sense the tightness of my clothes and how much my stomach is pushing out my shirt. And I start to believe this is all people see when they see me. How just plain big I am. I want to get a tattoo on my ribs but they're too wide. I want one on my thigh but the stretch marks make me want to cry. 

But I know by the numbers that I'm not fat at all. I try to compare myself to people I see to try to get a real impression of how I must look when others see me. I compare my body to girls who I believe are the same size as me. But it doesn't help. The part of me that thinks I'm big propels forward and makes comparisons with girls who are what I truly believe to be bigger than me. I know I'm not big but my soul doesn't believe it. I stopped starving myself to be small but the insatiable desire is still there and it's permanent. I will never, ever understand what I truly look like to people and it's one of the worst things I've come to know.