the story of a girl who ate 45 scoops of ice cream

By Juliette Lopez

tw: eating disorder

 

my pap-pap never let my mom

eat sweets as a child. 

 

no matter how much she pleaded,

or how much she cried 

for a Little Debbie 

or a Hostess Suzy Q, 

he stuffed her with 

bran muffins 

and ants on a log. 

 

to him, 

thin was beauty 

and he wouldn’t be satisfied

until she disappeared entirely. 

 

she won beauty pageants 

with her bran raised body, 

but Little Miss Pennsylvania

couldn’t claim her crowns 

from a hospital bed. 

 

she found herself 

scavenging her kitchen at night

on a hunt for anything 

that would soothe the wailing

cries of her stomach. 

 

her bones screeched 

as she fell to the floor 

and reached between the gaps 

of the freezer with her coin-sized

arms. 

 

she stretched past the endless bags of vegetable medleys

and leftovers of grilled chicken with wild rice, 

until her numb fingers met with the icy lid 

of the tub of ice cream 

that lived in the cave of her freezer 

for the past two summers. 

 

she ripped the tub away from a wall of ice,

scattering loose peas and ice cubes 

across the floor. 

her knees wobbled 

as she struggled to hold the tub 

up to the moonlight— 

 

Turkey Hill Peanut Butter Ripple 

 

her fingers danced across the frosted lid

quiet as to not wake anyone up— 

a ghost in the night 

 

she lifted the lid 

and dug into the gold

with her hands. 

 

cream ran from her fingertips

to her elbows

and she cried. 

and she cried. 

and she cried. 

 

she thought that this is what love must’ve tasted like 

 

she ate and ate until 

all that was left 

was a thick brown liquid. 

 

she lifted the tub 

and poured the cream down her throat, 

leaving a permanent ring

around her lips. 

 

sometimes I catch her licking at the ring,

never forgetting the story of a girl 

who ate 45 scoops of ice cream. 

 

Green Onions                                                                                               Beth