I Stand Before You Naked

Excerpt

From "THE ORANGE"

GIRL. Now I weigh ninety-three pounds . . . this morning I did . . . but I had some diet Coke, four cans of diet Coke, so I'm . . . heavier. Yesterday I had a 7-Grain Datebar . . . divided it into quarters 'cause it weighs four ounces I spread out eating it over four hours in my room in the dark after they'd all gone to bed I'm happiest then. At school I can be happy too in a different way inside here— (Indicates circle.) —but it's harder. I divide up the diet Coke, the diet chocolate-cream, coffee if it doesn't make me too spaced out, what I hate's running to the restroom a dozen times a day my stomach bloating I hate that you can see it now can't you! can't you! (Strikes fist against belly.) Like I'm, you know, like I'm, I'm pregnant, going to have a, a baby but oh no I'm not oh no never. (Trembling; on the verge of mania.) I'm so happy you can't know, inside me, there's God inside me you can't trap me with your eyes, no nor Momma either with her threats and tears and coercion, no other word but COERCION but she can't get me can't touch me, they say,—the doctor she made me go to, the therapist—that woman Ph.D. who came to talk to us at assembly—saying it's a medical problem an illness trying to scare us "irreversible liver damage" but it isn't, it isn't physical at all, it's here, it's God inside me, it's mine.