It starts as a tango. Feet flashing around and between other feet, swiping left and right in perfect synchronization. You don’t feel threatened, you and death are partners in this dance, holding each other close, but moving together so that neither is in danger. One misstep and your dance is done, one error and death has hold of you, but you move to the same rhythm, connected. Never more than a few inches away from each other, you feel safer than you would if death was hiding.

Most people tango until their hair grays, their bones become brittle, and arthritis grips their knuckles and kneecaps. They grow old in this dance until their body can’t handle it any more and allows death to run its cold fingers up their spine. This is a happy death, a natural death, one where the tango stops slowly.

You are still young though. Your hair is still blonde, your bones are still strong, and your knuckles and kneecaps can still move. You should still be tangoing. You are for a long time before things change.

You dance like a master, cradled in death’s arms and enjoying life while you have it, constantly on the cusp of mistake but confident enough that you don’t make any.

This perfect balance is interrupted though. You skip a meal and death’s hand slips from the curve of your back. Your fingers enter the back of your throat and death separates his hand from yours. One more meal skipped, he takes one more step back. Days go by and death is completely separated from you now. He sulks away from your side and lurks in the shadows. You can’t even see him any more. You don’t think about it, you don’t feel protected, but you don’t feel wary either.

This tango becomes a bullfight more quickly than you realize. Your red dress is just a cloth now, you are the matador, and death is the bull. You wave your red cloth, tempting it. The bull lifts a foot, scrapes it against the dirt, and charges. You sweep to the left, turning in circles, and the bull whizzes past. But this game is more dangerous than you think. With every dodge, you become wearier and the bull only gets angrier.

Your flirtation with death becomes a game. Death moves nearer, and you narrowly escape its grasp each time the bull lunges in. Your body gets weaker every time your mind drifts to hunger and you deny yourself the pleasure of healthiness. Starvation is your goal, and you’ve never been one to give up easily.

With every charge, the bull kicks up dust and dirt, its rough legs creating pebble mounds and displacing the dirt into tiny mountains and valleys. You don’t notice these small obstacles forming, but from the stands, the audience can see. They tell you to stop, that it’s for your own good, that they know what’s best, but there’s something inside of you that prevents you from listening. Maybe subconsciously you know they’re right, but you can’t bring yourself to tear your eyes away from the bull long enough to look down and see the hazards there.

You jump to the right, you duck your head to the left, you lean back, and you roll forward, all to avoid the bull’s full-throttled attempts at catching the red cloth, and maybe you as well, in its glistening horns. But the mounds catch your toes, the mountains your ankles, and the valleys your feet, until you tumble to the floor as the bull looms over you.

All of the onlookers could see what was happening, you were the only one who couldn’t. You were so obsessed with feeling light as a feather that you forgot what grounds you. The lighter you got, the heavier your soul was. When you were so nonexistent that you could have easily floated up into the stars if a stiff breeze ran through, you had never been so connected to the soil. The lighter you got, the more your body ached to be in the ground. You were burying yourself, but you didn’t notice because you felt light enough to reach the moon.

I knew what was going on while it happened. I saw the bull winning, and I couldn’t help but think how stupid you were to let it happen. You put yourself in that ring, and it was your job to pull yourself out of it.

But after all was said and done, and you had escaped the bull’s horns one more time, the memories started to blur and I saw you in the ring without the bull.

Your gold cape swung around your neck and your leather boots stretched up your legs in the most magnificent way. The sun shone off your golden buttons, and I started to see this bullfight as glamorous.

‘Her thighs don’t touch’ I would tell myself. I forgot to remind myself of your sunken face and blue fingers before I reminded myself of your skinny arms and flat stomach. I wanted what you had, because I forgot that the delicate tango I was in with death could be broken so easily; that death could become my enemy faster than I could imagine.

Just before death morphed into the brown bull beast, I pulled myself out of that mind prison of thinking it would be okay if I just went a few more days without eating, lost a few more pounds. I realized that death was dropping my hand and growing horns so I backed out.

You always say you’re better now, that you made it through, recovered. But I think you’re still in that ring with the bull, your gold cape fluttering and your red cloth waving, you just don’t know it, or don’t want to admit it.

I hope that I can help you realize that you weren’t always in this bullfight. I hope that I can help you realize that I remember a time when you didn’t have to tempt and dodge death with your starvation.

I hope that when you go, you don’t go in a bullfight. I hope that you go tangoing.