Pick like a bird (for “HNDL Magazine”)

I’d pick like a bird who couldn’t get to the worm.

Published in HNDL Magazine on July 31, 2026.

I was an enviable size zero with pencil legs and hip bones so sharp they could cut a man. You look good in everything, they say, because you’re a skinny bitch. What, are you sick? What’s wrong with you? You pick at your food like a bird.

My childhood pet bird ironically died from compulsive eating. Was it domestication that did it? The comfort of endless seeds and colorful treats inside a gilded cage? Domestication had the opposite effect on me. Inside my gilded cage, my appetite had vanished without a trace.

I desperately wanted to escape to Olive Garden like suburban kids on prom night and eat a whole basket of breadsticks. All-you-can-eat. Anxiety consumed me, the way I couldn’t consume food. Compulsions and rituals ruled my existence.

Control. I needed it because I was spiraling. Sixes. Threes. Checking. Tapping. Folding. Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. I’d pick like a bird who couldn’t get to the worm.

Then it happened. I can't even remember when because the bliss made me forget time. I was god’s favorite. A warmth spread throughout me, quelling the anxiety I would feel locked away deep inside my youth.

Food is nature and I love nature. Food is art and I love art. Food is pleasure and I love pleasure. We all deserve to be hedonistic, at least from time to time.

Birds get to fly if you let them. And did you know that earthworms have taste buds all over their bodies?