Glutton!
By Lilith Stuart
March 31, 2026
Graphic by Alex Lekhakul
I stand over my bathroom sink, my shoulders heaving up and down as my eyes gaze into the drain below. Everything in my body is heavy and pulls me closer to collapsing onto the floor. Pulling my head up, I see my reflection in the mirror.
Oh, my reflection, something I once stopped to see when passing by mirrors in stores. The flickers of orange, purple and a multitude of mismatched colors on my outfit resembled something bright and fleeting. A lived moment in time that I can never return to.
All there is now is a bloated face and an open mouth that I cannot even seem to close in my pain. My stomach aches and twists as I clutch it. I remembered how good the first brownie bite tasted, how it fell apart in my mouth as I chewed and chewed until it was nothing but mush that slid smoothly down my throat. The next one had gone down the same way. The next was paired with some s’mores trail mix that my mom bought with the idea that we could try something new. I rushed each bite into my mouth, gulping them down almost whole. At the end of the night, I was alone with a sore stomach and a hollow yellow bowl that had been overflowing in the morning.
All I wanted to do now was vomit and get everything I had eaten out of me. I saw it as a fresh start, a blank slate to try again. But as I saw my stomach bulging over my sleep shorts and my facial features now buried beneath my skin, I knew that it would take more than two fingers down my throat to reverse the damage. I had indulged, my stomach full of greed, and it was now time to pay.
—
There was a time, back in my childhood, when the kitchen was a haven. The cupboards were full of possibilities, and I would fantasize about all of the things I could combine to make delicious foods. Pulling on one of my mom’s colorful bandanas that clashed with my loud floral print skirt, I took bowls and whisks out from their resting place to create something.
My mom joked about how I was just like her parents by reading cookbooks in my free time, daydreaming about roast chickens for dinner and pot de crème for dessert. Before I was a storyteller, I scribbled up menus that I wanted to make one day. My dolls had kitchen sets, bright orange and pink with a full fridge of delicious entrees. Everyone was well fed and happy in the little corner of my imagination.
When I felt like I had “grown up,” my dollhouse went to a resale store, and my favorite dolls were packed into storage containers.
I outgrew the floral skirt, blue jeans taking its place. Younger me would have squirmed at that. She hated jeans, she found them boring and uncomfortable.
“How are you supposed to move freely?” She might ask, though I am not quite sure what she would say to me. I did not feel a connection to her anymore.
Graphic by Alex Lekhakul
Adolescent moodiness drifted into the empty space, a grey film spreading from within the walls of my home, down the front steps, and then out into the world before my eyes. I put on a smile, pretending not to notice the sudden shift. I tried to laugh when it seemed appropriate and take interest in conversations that were supposed to grasp my attention. I felt empty.
I was desperate to find that happiness again. My soul growled, and then I found myself in the playspace of my childhood to pacify it. I felt better after having a snack, but it was not enough. I would continue grabbing and stuffing food into my mouth, begging myself to feel happy again. My fingers squeezed and crumbled every morsel I could find, hoping that after this bite I would feel satisfied. Everything would be fixed. I would return to myself.
But it was never enough. I never stopped until I felt sick, a sign of failure. All of the materials were there to give me happiness, and I still did not feel it. There must be something deeply wrong with me, an emptiness that can never be filled. This emptiness continued to grow as my clothes stopped fitting and my isolation became unmanageable.
—
Years later, in that same bathroom where I once clutched my stomach in pain, I look up and see myself in the mirror. It could have been the buzzing of the light, the tired look in my downturned cheeks, or the dullness in my eyes, but something came over me.
Why do I do this to myself?
Where I once would’ve heard the insatiable devil on my shoulder say that this overindulgence was to help me, I find only the slight hum of the bathroom. I remember when I would savor every bite of life, wanting to linger in the moments as I was living in them — jumping into the pool knowing that it would be cold or trying out a new recipe with no guarantee that it would work.
I wanted to wait for the perfect time to live. I tried to be “happy enough,” taking a shortcut through food. I desperately anticipated my arrival, only to realize that I was in a darker and more twisted place. I became eager to crawl out by becoming “skinny enough” to continue living. It was an escape plan concocted by my desire to conceal all of my flaws — greed, impatience and inadequacy — with a beautiful exterior. I was waiting for a perfectly balanced time that would never come, and for the past four years I was living my life on pause — in a constant stage of stagnation.
Turning off the washed out light of the bathroom, I run into my room and pull a cookbook off the shelf, wiping some dust off the pages. I write down the grocery list for a roast chicken, fresh broccoli salad, garlic mashed potatoes, and a chocolate cake for dessert (I would work my way up to pot de crème). It was time to stop daydreaming and rushing. I am ready to erase the grey and venture out into the rich world that lay ahead of me, and it would all start in my kitchen. ■
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