full
TW: eating disorder
I felt full at breakfast today. It wasn’t much. It was a simple meal.
Bread, butter, jam, some eggs, some milk.
But it was an unfamiliar number: 3.
3 toasts with jam and butter. Applied 3 times. 3 eggs scrambled. Milk poured 3 times.
3. I counted. 3. I ate.
I ate the number 3 3 3 3
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
I ate not 2 not 1 not 0. 3. 3. 3.
The food pushed against my stomach and my stomach pushed against my shorts and my shorts pushed against me and I thought my sleep shorts which I’d worn for five years would give away disown reprimand abandon scorn bully –
But they simply held my stomach.
Just like that. The elastic stretched and then stopped and hugged and I hugged back.
I felt full at breakfast today
And I met my five-year-old sleep shorts for the first time in their entirety
Did you only take this much dal?
Yeah ofcourse it was a lot haha
A lot?
Oh quite a lot haha
It was half a scoop
But I took so much dal haha
With yogurt haha
And raw onions haha two please haha
And hot water haha
Hot not warm, hot haha
In a bowl haha
Not a plate haha
A small bowl haha
Haha
I am so full
Haha.
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
I felt full at breakfast today.
I felt the absence of reason. Of reason. Reason reason reason reason is not what you think it is. It is so easily pliable I didn’t even have to apply much force. One bend and a twist and it’s gone unrecognisable shaped into something else, recognisable
Smrithi, i don’t like it
This is it, please?
No
Don’t ask for more, please?
No
Adjust to it?
No
Forget about it in a bit?
No
Just lie to me, then?
Don’t involve me in your shit dude.
2s and 1s and 0s make sense. 3s don’t.
I renounce making sense, I’ve had enough of it.
My body and I sit together at the table, and my body leaves a seat between us. I see it sit every day, a little more seats between us every day. But today it comes a little closer to me at breakfast.
A little.
Enough to see the lines the softness the textures the pores the color the
Breathing this body breathes this body breathes at breakfast it breathes.
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
I see it. I can. I can see this body as a stranger. It’s better this way. Because I am kinder to strangers. I hold the strangeness of this body and view it as outside of me a house that houses me, me the exception to all rules to all beings to all exceptions in the world to all Instagram posts neatly packaged into beautiful colourful illustrated boxes.
I see carefully, I don’t listen. My body tells me things, I don’t listen.
So somewhere there, in time, it becomes criminal. Somewhere there, crimes are committed. Somewhere there, is a cold victory. A victory of the will. A victory of a fearful heart. A biology that has lost yet again.
What a victory.
I felt full at breakfast today and realised what a crime it is to be only offered a love that’s never full in a body that’s
tailored for partners, who wouldn’t fucking stop saying things about it.
tailored for friends, who wouldn’t fucking stop seeing things about it.
tailored for family, who wouldn’t fucking stop feeding things into it.
tailored for strangers, who wouldn’t fucking stop thinking things about it.
tailored for me, who wouldn’t fucking stop imagining joy without it.
Blame the damages on your absent-mindedness on your forgetfulness on your ignorance on your upbringing on your lack of access on your lack of education it is all understandable. But I lie in this body at night talking its biology down while you snore in yours next to me in the other room in the other city on the other side of the world in another universe.
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Don’t you know
Biology got nothing on me.
Biology got nothing on me.
Such practice such persistence such patience, I swear you’ve never seen care like this.
Soft parts will now fill these spaces that were meant to carefully sketch out my drawing for the world. Soft parts. Soft. Bulging, broad, moving. In small spaces, in big spaces, in cramped spaces, in between spaces, in insignificant spaces, in precious spaces, in held spaces, in ignored spaces, in important spaces, in useless spaces, in wanted spaces, in discarded spaces, in loved spaces, in hurt spaces, in unimagined spaces, in non spaces
When you hold me, I will still shrink. Don’t take it personally.
My therapist says it’s helped me survive.
I felt full at breakfast today. With my 3 eggs, 3 toasts with 3 layers of butter, and milk poured 3 times. I’ll wait for as long as I need to. At the table. Trying to call my body closer to me in food served in 3s for now. 3 will do for now.
3.
Smrithi Nair is an artist, a theater-maker, making art out of India and the UAE. In her practice,
massively influenced by Disability Studies, she creates work that seeks to mess with
structures that are held a little too closely, in order to point to the changeability of our
existence. She uses the lens of research, care and honesty to envision a radically kind world
through her arts practice. Follow her on Instagram: @anexplodingpotato
Images by Sudarshan Khadka, courtesy of the author