I Am Eating Myself Alive

I am eating myself alive, and I do it the way someone intelligent convinces themselves they are not being cruel, only thorough and meticulous. I tell myself this is analysis, this is insight, this is betterment. But I rarely admit that there is something predatory in the way I turn my teeth inward, searching not for understanding, but for flaw.

There is a hunger behind my insecurities that feels insatiable. It feeds on comparison, on imagined scenarios, on the belief that if I can just understand why I’m not enough, I can fix it. I pick at my own flesh—my appearance, my desirability, my personality—until self-awareness turns into self-consumption. Beneath my appetite is the quiet conviction that if I fix the right thing, remove the right flaw, someone might finally love me in a way that never leaves.

And yet, some insecurities cannot be fixed. They are woven too deeply into the flesh of who I am, they are the veins that carry blood. So I overthink, as if understanding my anatomy might grant me control over my puppet body. I treat overthinking like a form of preparation, as if anticipating every possible way I could be rejected will soften the edge of the knife when it finally comes. It won’t. Should I meet the blade, whether softened or not, I will bleed all the same.

Once I start peeling back the skin, I begin to see the rotten flesh. I become aware of what I believe I lack and fixate on what others once had. I study the past as though it contains evidence against me. I turn intimacy into comparison, presence into performance, desire into a measure of worth. I dissect every word, searching for confirmation that I am inadequate, that I am replaceable, that I must earn my place continually. At the same time, I gnaw at my flesh for proof that I am enough, that I am irreplaceable, that I can be loved for who I am.

I realise I am not trying to protect myself as much as I am trying to control the narrative of loss. If I can determine that I am lacking, then abandonment, even if it never arrives, becomes logical rather than heart-shattering. There is a strange warmth in this. Pain, when anticipated, feels manageable. Love, when it is uncertain, feels dangerous.

The tragedy is that my hunger is never satisfied. The mind cannot feast endlessly without hollowing the body. The act of eating myself alive only deepens the emptiness it was meant to fill.