He spread his feet a little more than shoulder width apart, pushed his slightly long and sloppy hair behind his ears, and leaned over. The bowl stared at him. To him, the bowl had a face, a personality. The bowl hated him. The bowl was his enemy.

The bowl was also his best friend.

He heard a knock on his stall, startling him. He stood up straight. "You okay man?" a voice said.
"Yeah," he replied, "I'm fine."
He waited until there were no more footsteps in the bathroom before leaning over the bowl again.

And there it was, again. He saw the devil in the bowl. He saw a bully. He saw himself.

He gagged from his stomach, letting out a heavy 'HNNG'. He did this several times before spitting. Sometimes spitting helped, he noticed. Then he tried coughing. Nothing. He was getting nothing, and his stomach was only feeling worse. He could barely taste the vomit from the back of his throat.

'Don't do this,' his inner voice said, 'you have almost no food in you, and you know it.'
'I feel like crap,' his other inner voice protested, 'I've felt like crap for too long.'
56 days and counting, he recalled.
'This won't solve anything,' replied the first voice, 'you won't even be able to throw up. There's no food in you.'
'It'll feel good.'

The pain in his stomach was getting worse. He slid his index and middle finger down his throat. He hated doing this. How far is it okay to go down your throat? What if you start vomitting while your fingers are still in there? Would you choke? Would you die? He didn't know; he'd never self-induced vomitting before.

He slid his fingers down far enough to trigger the gag reflex, and removed his fingers quickly. He stood parllel to the bottom of the bowl, his enemy, with his mouth open. He pushed with his stomach, making silent 'huh' noises.

He'd spent his previous class thinking about throwing up. How nice it would feel to have your body be in so much pain for so long, then to relieve it all at once. To feel that euphoria. To know that you're going to be okay. He hadn't been okay in 56 days.

Food was evil: his ultimate enemy. His body wanted food; he felt hunger (and, when he waited long enough, the awful hunger pangs), he felt his stomach growling. He felt his body's need for protein. His body rejected food, his stomach would hurt after eating food, especially any form of protein. He spent weeks with a sole diet of apples, bread and diet lime soda. He hated his body. 'Why are you doing this to me?' he'd ask his body. 'I don't know man, probably just to mess you up.' 'Please stop. I'm trying to function; I'm trying to be normal.'

But normal people couldn't be alone without their thoughts driving them mad, he knew. Normal people didn't get flashbacks without constant distractions. Why was he always watching TV? Playing video games? He should really do more school work...

They can't know. They'll never know.

Sometimes he thought he was nuts. Sometimes he'd imagine his stresses as black gunk in his head, and when he lied down, he'd imagined the black gunk spilling out of his ears. Literal cleaning of the mind. Literally taking away the thoughts, the memories, the fears. But the gunk always found a way to redevelop. It always came back. Vomit doesn't come back. Once it's out, it's out. He stood over the toilet, his throat slightly burning from the stomach acid, and pushed.

The nausea was gone.

He hung his head in defeat. He didn't vomit, yet his attempt resulted in a worse stomachache than before. He'd have to repeat the whole process to get to the the poit of almost-vomit again. He felt like crying, then he cried. It made his throat feel worse.

He hated himself. He hated the people who did this to him. He hated them. He told them about his problems, how he can't eat or sleep, how he always wanted to throw up. They didn't care. It made his sickness so much worse. He told them that their actions did this to him. They didn't care. They didn't care about you. They left you in the dust for something more important.

You were supposed to be the most important thing to them.

'This is why you don't leave yourself alone with your thoughts,' the first inner voice said to him, 'you always bum yourself out.'
'The kid needs to learn to suck it up,' replied the second voice, 'he's been antidepressants for over two months. He's just trying to be dramatic.'
'Give the kid some time to recover....'
'Stop defending him! There are people starving, and here he is trying to make himself throw up. He's a selfish b****** for doing this to himself. Selfish.'
He hated the inner voices. Always at war with each other. Always mean to each other. He tried to make them go away, but he couldn't. Just like the gunk.

He remembered the look on his mom's face when she saw his arms. He remembered how she cried afterwards. He did that to her. He made her cry. "I'm hopeless," his mom had said, "you're not eating, sleeping, you're always sick and....". She choked up before continuing. "....now this. What can I do? I wish there was something I could do for you...."

There was something she could do for him, but he knew it would be too selfish to ask of her. So he never did, and never would. "I'd just like to be alone." he'd replied to her.

So many times he'd skip school out of angst, as a form of protest. So many times he'd skip meals to show the people he hated who was really in charge. So many times he'd leave marks on his arms to distract the emotional pain. So many times he'd leave class to go to the bathroom and cry.

He just wants to be normal...
I just want to function.