A Window Into the Past

The full length of reflective glass stares back at me,
Seeing someone who has been absent for 12 months that I'll never get back.
But a window into the past opens up,
Transporting me to one year ago.
Sunken cheeks, sallow skin.
Milk chocolate eyes that are devoid of all emotion,
Except for fear and pain.
Spindly bones for arms,
So famished and weak.
Hips that jut out at unsightly angles,
Sharp and defined.
My legs are struggling,
Keeping the little weight that they must support from crashing to the floor.
But that's just the outside.
Look closer.
Go ahead, don't be scared.
Feel the pain that gnaws at the inside of the stomach,
gut wrenching emptiness that screams of insecurity.
Fatigue, so deep and true that my body is slumped.
Such horror haunts my entire frame.
With that thought I pull myself to the present.
I see full cheeks,
rosy with color that I used to take for granted.
My body has filled out in the right places,
no longer a box of sharp points and turns.
Now it's not such a pain to look closer.
I see freedom, someone no longer trapped.
I see pure joy and radiant light that was not a possibility before.
Contentment and energy course through my veins.
It is with this examination that I think to myself,
Never again.