Show Notes

Listeners’ Letter

Dear Food,

or really, dear me

for we are nothing without one another.

Together we have navigated rocky terrain,

a tumultuous relationship

full of more fear than love.

I have needed you,

hated you,

and in that

needed and hated myself.

I have blamed you,

restricted you

binged you

earned you

burned you

enjoyed you

hidden you

purged you.

My Self is tied to you

closely and painfully.

But as I have arrived

at my 23rd year

most of the previous 22 spent focusing far too much on you,

I am unravelling

some of the tangled web we exist in together

and realizing

it is not your fault, food.

Ant it is not mine either.

It feels cliché to say

but I have seen the truth.

It’s society that has created all of this.

It’s all lies

mirrors and smoke

illusions to suck away happiness and freedom

and, most importantly, money and power.

It’s the patriarchy and capitalism

two systems of oppressive power

that taught me to worry about you

about us

about my size and shape

and the effect that you have on those parts of me.

So young I felt for the first time like I took up too much space

with this body of mine.

That I needed to shrink

so I could fit into tiny little premade boxes.

So young I cut you out

I forgot the pleasure you could bring me.

I thought only of numbers,

trying to get you as small as possible

so I could be that way as well.

The rush that success brought is tempting even now,

but I have learned since the first time

that trying to make yourself smaller

is a process doomed to fail.

That in fact our bodies try to protect us

by making us take up even more space after.

Because our bodies don’t believe the lies.

Our innate wisdom

sees through the smoke and mirrors.

And if only I was better at balancing my body and my mind

I would also be able to see the truth.

Instead, I still look in the mirror

and hear the voices of the systems

whispering their poison.

So insidious they are that I yearn

to listen to them

to try again to shrink.

But I won’t,

not anymore.

Because after years of finding myself with my fingers down my throat,

after years of having the most abusive relationship with you, food,

I’ve decided to save my own life.

I am unlearning the lies.

I am shouldering a lifetime of clearing away

the darkness that has been put into my mind.

Because I realized that

even when my body is not

what the world tells me it should be,

I feel lighter

When I can just see you, food,

As a friend.