relapse by Sarah Kaplin (Minnesota, 21)

​Trigger Warning: eating disorders

i can feel myself balancing on a ledge,
trying not to slip back into who i once was,
but the pull of it is almost too much to resist.
if i’m not careful, it’ll drag me four stories to the ground,
killing me upon impact.

i feel it in the morning when the cold water hits my empty stomach.
on the days when i open my mother’s sewing box
to hem a skirt that once was too small and see a tape measure.
when i see walk around the grocery store and see a scale,
everything in me longing to step on it and finally know
the magic number that could make or break my day.

my brain says life would be easier if i was starving,
and sometimes i think it’s right.

recovery was supposed to be my way out,
the end of the seven-year war of calories and scales,
the conclusion of lying to my mother about what i ate,
and no longer wearing baggy clothes and long sleeves in summer.

nobody told me how much i would still ache for it,
how i would feel so much worse now that
i no longer have the cold comfort of anorexia living in my bones.

the longer i entertain the idea of relapse, the more i want to.
because relapse is scary, but i’m starting to think
that maybe remaining recovered is scarier.




Sarah Kaplin is a poet based in Minnesota. She began writing poetry at 14 as a means of coping and never stopped. In her free time, you can find her reading or writing at odd hours of the night.