The loudest voice in my life never used sound.

It asked questions.

What are we eating today?

It was still morning.

Breakfast hadn’t even arrived, and lunch had already pulled up a chair.

Dinner was waiting outside.

Dessert had one foot in the doorway.

I carried tomorrow’s meals around like loose change in my pocket.

People think hunger lives in your stomach.

Mine rented a room in my imagination.

Every drive became a menu.

Every commercial became a suggestion.

Every gas station was an argument.

I couldn’t pass a restaurant without accidentally walking through it in my head.

I’d already ordered before I reached the stoplight.

I’d already decided on dessert before the waiter handed me the menu.

Sometimes I’d finish eating…

…and immediately begin wondering what came next.

Not because I wanted more.

Because the conversation had never been about the meal.

Food wasn’t interrupting my life.

It was narrating it.

The cruelest part?

The voice always sounded like me.

It knew exactly which promises I’d believe.

“You’ve earned it.”

“Tomorrow is a cleaner place to begin.”

“One meal doesn’t matter.”

Funny.

Neither did the one after that.

Or the one after that.

People saw my weight.

They never saw the courtroom.

The prosecution.

The defense.

The verdict.

Every meal came with a trial.

Every bite had to justify its existence.

Every tomorrow was sentenced before today was over.

I used to think I wanted a smaller body.

I didn’t.

I wanted silence.

I wanted to finish breakfast…

…without lunch introducing itself.

I wanted to drive home…

…without every glowing restaurant sign reading my name.

I wanted one ordinary Tuesday…

…where food stayed on the plate instead of following me into every room of my mind.

Maybe that’s why people who have never lived it struggle to understand.

They think the battle is against food.

It isn’t.

It’s against a voice that sounds enough like you…

…that you spend years mistaking it for the truth.