17 Eating Disorder Poems to Help Find Healing

Inside: Eating Disorder Poems to Help You Feel Whole Again.

Poetry can be a therapeutic outlet for our struggles, a way we can pour our feelings out into the world and out of our heads. It can be a way to share with others the inner turmoil we are experiencing.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, you are not alone. Humans have a complicated relationship with food and our bodies. Scroll through social media, and you can feel envious of the way others look on their best days, and feel like you will never compare.

These 17 Eating Disorder Poems are written by brave poets who put their vulnerabilities out into the world so that others know they are not on their healing journey alone.

If you need help getting your eating disorder under control, please reach out to a loved one or medical professional soon. You deserve to be whole, healthy and truly happy.

Eating disorder help and support

5 Poems About Eating Disorders

1.Fat by Caroline Rothstein
I am not fat.
It took me twenty-two years to purge words onto a page the same way I purged my body
into stomach ulcers, popped eye blood vessels, and missing tooth enamel —
twenty-two years to tell the tale of my bulimic, anorexic, and disordered eating hell,
and I’ve walked barefoot through tiled deserts of bathrooms to find a mirage
of my distorted body image staring up at me from the tainted water in the toilet.

I used to daydream about freedom;
I used to daydream about appreciating the abundance of food around me;
I used to daydream about eating dinner without wanting to kill myself;
and that like the society I wish to heal and explain I too someday would change.

So, I’ve unchained the melody of my dirge sung soul
and patched layers of karmic candle wax to mend the stomach holes.

I am free –
free from sneaking out of Algebra & Trigonometry to vomit elegantly
into a toilet paper-filled toilet during a passing period so that no one could hear me;
free from credit cards that pay for wasted food crumpled into white garbage bags
in the gutter across the street from my driveway;
free from dry skin and shedding hair, bleeding skin and death scares
because food gave me power to inject order into a world of chaos;
food gave me the love and security I was afraid to find in my sexuality;
food could remedy the abandonment I felt from my father’s excessive traveling
to make the excessive amounts of money I would vomit in the toilet.

But this is not a poem about struggling through thousands
of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners when
thousands struggle without breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
This is not a poem about millions of tears as my fear incrusted fingers and body
lay mangled, shaking, twitching on the bathroom floor with fear and insecurity
when millions of children are held captive, shaking with fear and no security.
This is not a poem about the guilt of a privileged disorder because I was often told
I was selfish for an uncontrollable force coaxing me to stick my fingers down my throat.

This is a poem about context –
about how I can’t formulate linguistic ink blots to tangibly articulate
the deadly pain that lived inside of me,
about playing Russian roulette with my esophagus
as my gun barrel fingers triggered tragedy down my throat,
about self-deprecating stares in the mirror of a red-faced terrorist
hijacking my digestive system from within,

about how my eyes have learned to make love
to the lower left corner of my torso,
and how the sun sets in the crevices of cellulite
in my thunder thighs.

This is a poem about the regurgitated traumas that I cannot digest,
and at best, this is a poem about how
I am not fat.

2. Desperate by Elena
I am hungry
Tired
Nicotine addicted
Smell of cigarettes take over my room
I am starving and I should keep on going
Punish myself for all I did
For all you did to me
I cannot sleep
I cannot eat for comfort
I need to smoke most of the time away
My heart is beating too fast
Or not at all

3. Number by Broken Pieces
I count each number,
The calories drowning me.
And I just can’t float.

4. I’m Your Disease by Jodi More 

Sucked like a vacuum, I held my fear,
built up anger you want to hold near.

Shaking and trembling is what I feel,
purging my thoughts is how I heal.

Feelings of emptiness that have no depth.
Disappointment climbs the walls inside my chest.

You’ve lied to me all these years,
holding in the pain that has caused so many tears.

You think you’re strong, but I make you weak.
I know the truth you’re looking to seek.

You thought you had control over me all these years.
I’m your friend when you looked into your mirror.

You think you can forget me and run and hide.
I’m the only one who has stuck by your side.

I’ve given you comfort and relief.
Why now do you treat me like a thief.

I’ve stolen from you your sense of pride,
not letting you see that you are beautiful on the inside.

I’ve come to steal your strength and health.
Don’t look to me to give you wealth.

You’ve been fighting this battle all alone.
Haven’t you figured it out that you can’t do this on your own?

This has been our secret for so long.
Do you have the courage to make you strong?

I’m the monster you won’t admit,
afraid that now you’ll have to commit.

5. coming undone by Aspen S 
i cannot seem to forget
the smallness i had become.
bruised thighs
and sunken eyes
were my reality;
my skin was devoid of
any nutrients,
fragile and delicate.
i could vanish
into nothingness
like quicksand.

my days bled into
one another,
fingers frozen,
heart barely beating,
lungs hardly breathing.
i stared down the
barrel of the gun,
wished to purge my urges,
sat in an endlessly deep
pool of misery until
drowning was all i could do.

i replaced food with air,
consuming empty calories
and dug knives into
my skin as a personal hobby.

i am an open would
that never heals,
and i am desperate
to move on.

Poems About Body Image

6. My Not-Addiction by Sydney W.

It’s not an addiction,
Really it’s not.
But that mirror,
It’s a source of affliction.

Not long ago,
I could look in that mirror
And see nothing wrong at all,
But now I’ve got nothing to show.

The pressure to be perfect,
It tears away at my body.
At first it looked like nothing,
But it had a side effect.

I wanted to be one of them,
One of those girls everyone envied.
But the price to pay was my body,
Not a small pretty diamond gem.

It was never enough,
No matter what I did.
The skipped meals
Turned my image rough.

But will it ever be worth it?
I stare and ask myself.
My image in the mirror,
Kept begging just to quit.

It became a nightly thing,
Standing on that scale.
And I was pleased to see
That the pounds kept dropping.

My hair was starting to thin.
My bones began to show.
Everything was different.
The desire was starting to win.

The pain I was putting myself through,
The constant suffering,
Everything was just a blur,
But nobody ever knew.

I don’t starve anymore,
But I could if I tried.
It was a part of my life,
Now just a closed door.

It’s not an addiction,
Really, it’s not.
But that mirror,
It’s a source of affliction.

7. The Truth by Caley House

Slippery, sweet, syrupy words sticking in my brain
A lie
They won’t go away no matter how much I try to send them back to where they came from
A lie
It’s so hard to abstain from the succulent fruit of life
A lie
A black force telling me food was my enemy and they were my friend
A lie
They say that the home is where the heart is
A lie
But home for you it’s where the torture continues
A lie
You’re are worth nothing and the only way to prove yourself is to shrink and let the space around you grow
A lie
Until the space around you envelops you in its clear, perfect arms
A lie
But when society tells you you’re nothing but wrong in those skinny, shiny books
A lie
Stick arms reach for sustenance the manipulator does not want
A lie
Extreme measures in which a “diet trick” went wrong
A lie
All this young girl wanted to do was belong
A lie
Trapped by her twenty four bared cage guarding a twisted, mangled heart
A lie
The slippery, sweet, syrupy voice tells her it’s the only way
A lie
Two fingers are the best weapon and to use it always
A lie
Black, everything’s black till you’re put in the white tiled hallway
A lie
Because everything is a lie
A lie was how it started
A lie is how it continued
The truth is how it ended

8. We Are All Born by Rupi Kaur
We are all born

so beautiful,

the greatest tragedy

is being convinced

we are not

9. Master Of Disguise by Lkglauren

She is skillful at deceiving.
No one even has a clue.
Her pretty words are weaving
Throughout the souls of me and you,
But in the late parts of the evening,
When her mind is way past due,
The skin of hers starts bleeding
And her act becomes askew.
Her eyes are actually pleading,
Saying her words aren’t always true,
And her heart is really needing
Life to begin anew.
So if at night you see her sneaking,
Hold her till the morning’s hue,
Because her heart is barely beating,
And she doesn’t know if she’ll make it through.

10. Remember, Body… by Constantine P. Cavafy
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires which for you
plainly glowed in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice – and some
chance obstacle made them futile.
Now that all belongs to the past,
it is almost as if you had yielded

to those desires too – remember,
how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

11. This Body by Stephanie Brummond

Every morning I make love to this body

I used to treat her like a suit of armor
Cold
Detached
Disposable
Replaceable

I wake her up every morning
I play with her, stretch, push
I allow her new experiences
Fill every crevice with gratitude
I nourish her out of love

I am gentle with her
I push her limits,
but allow for healing and rest

I am one with her.
We are one.

Poems About Healing From An Eating Disorder

12. Now You’ve Recovered by Charles A Cino

When you recover, what will you do?