Published by Jellyfish Review

The first time Ella woke up eating, she told her new therapy group, she was ladling cocoa puffs into her mouth. She’d eaten half the box, and the mess was everywhere — cocoa puffs on the table, cocoa puffs in the front pocket of her pajama top, cocoa puffs crunching underfoot as she trudged back to her bedroom, the box tucked under her arm.
The next time she was filling a celery stalk with peanut butter. Six stubs marred the perfect bunch of celery she’d put away that afternoon. Then The Great Watermelon Slaughter, which she paid for by having to run to the bathroom every twelve minutes for the next twenty-four hours. She tried not to picture herself wielding the butcher knife she’d used to break into that pink center.
And there was popcorn night and Girl Scout Cookie night. Butter night.
“And that,” Ella snaked a hand to her midriff to appreciate the tension in her abs as she held her stomach in, “long story short, is how I came to be here these last three Wednesday evenings.”

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Photo credit: Corie Howell on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND.