to those who starve themselves when life gets tough

My Mister (2018)

i was never empty because i was not hungry. i was empty because sadness kept eating first.

i know it is not the food.

it was never the food.

it is the exhaustion that sits inside your bones like floodwater, rising so quietly that nobody notices you are drowning until even simple things begin feeling impossible.

and eating is such a simple thing, isn’t it?

just lift the spoon. just chew. just swallow.

but some nights, even chewing feels exhausting. even swallowing feels like asking the body for one more favor after life has already taken too much from it.

so you sit beside untouched meals while the world mistakes your suffering for laziness.

but i know the truth.

sometimes, people do not starve themselves because they are not hungry.

but because, not eating feels like control when everything else is falling apart.

sometimes, deprivation feels like punishment when you have convinced yourself that you failed.

sometimes, care begins to feel like something you must deserve first.

but please, listen to me.

food is not a reward for being productive. rest is not a prize for being strong. care is not something you earn only after surviving beautifully.

you are allowed to eat even if you cried all day. you are allowed to eat even if you disappointed yourself. you are allowed to eat even if the only thing you did today was stay alive.

please, do not abandon yourself this way.

your body is not your enemy. it is the oldest witness of your survival.

it carried you through heartbreak. through fear. through nights you thought would never end. through mornings you did not want to wake up to. through days when your soul was tired

and maybe that is something we forget when we are suffering:

the body is not just flesh. it is a trust. it is a home your soul was given for a while. it is the quiet mercy that keeps holding you even when your mind has already turned against itself.

so when you feed yourself, you are not simply eating.

you are telling your body, “i am sorry i left you alone in this pain.”

you are telling your future, “i am still willing to meet you.”

you are telling sadness,

“you may sit with me tonight, but you do not get to starve me.”

Please remember that there is a version of you in the future who will be grateful that, even in your lowest moment, you did not let sadness turn your own hands against the body that carried you this far.