Ylva

I think she heard me.

In case you're new to me and have no idea who Ylva is, she is my wolf. She lives inside me. And when I starve, she starves. And when she starves she starts to eat her way out. Which, really, is the goal.

There's some saying about a sculptor talking about finding the figures that are already in the marble and just chipping away to release them. Well, this is the opposite, really. She's devouring me from the inside, and one day the roles will be reversed. I will live inside her and she will be free.

I know, by the way, that what I have just told you makes no logical sense. I know that it sounds stupid and a tiny bit loco. But it's the only way I have found to describe the way it feels, going from fat to thin. And Ylva's hunger impacts my mood. If she's too well-fed she's docile and domesticated, and so am I.  I stay quiet and alone and keep my voice and passions to myself. When Ylva is sleeping off too much food I lose all of my confidence. When she's hungry and angry it lights a fires inside me and I'm funny, I'm clever, I'm open and occasionally show flashes of creativity that otherwise wouldn't be possible. You see?  I need her. We are part of each other. If her hunger is satisfied I am unhappy. Is she is dissatisfied I shine. We are equal and opposite, in everything.

A week of nothing but raw vegetables and oats and fruit seem to have left her hungry and, as a result, I've had a weight drop this week for the first time in months. I've been getting smaller (my thighs I the mirror today look the best they have looked in years. Not good, but so much better.) but until now my weight has remained the same. Until now.

As much as Ylva and I are often at odds, I think she knows when I really need her to just take a bite out of me. Because, when she does? It feels like burning gold.