I spend my days fighting the monsters in my brain

I spend my days fighting the monsters in my brain 

These monsters, they tell me that I will be worth nothing, that I will accomplish nothing, until I have shed every layer of skin and fat and muscle from my body

They tell me that I will be nothing until I am nothing but bones

These monsters, they tell me to scream every time I am angry. They tell me to curl up in a defeated ball every time I am sad. They tell me to steal, to lie, to cheat--to equate adrenaline with happiness and riskiness with accomplishment. 

These monsters, they tell me that my feelings are invalid, that I am not sick enough to be sick. They tell me I am not sick unless I bleed my thoughts from my veins, unless my hair starts falling out again, unless my pants don’t fit, unless people notice, unless I get sent to the hospital again. 

I spend my days fighting the monsters in my brain. 

But I also spend my days writing papers, laughing with my friends. I spend my days working and studying and debating and advocating and researching and eating and getting out of bed and screaming at my brain to stop telling me that it isn’t enough. 

These monsters, they don’t tell me that by shedding my skin I am shedding all my power. They don’t tell me that by bleeding I can only lose. 

These monsters, they don’t tell me that my power and my beauty and my voice and my brains are housed in the fat on my body. 

So I spend my days fighting monsters.