I ate too much for breakfast today
And lunch was spent wondering if I should slip away
Wondering if I should go back for seconds
**** it, why not?
My feet jiggled nervously under the table
Trying to think of an excuse to leave
Trying to figure out how much the barbeque chicken pizza would hurt on the way back up
Trying to figure out how much I’d regret it
Trying to figure out if my body was okay
My self esteem balloons up and down
Somedays I look in the mirror and like what I see,
Think I look cute and quirky in my glasses and skirt,
Think my body is almost okay
And then like black crossing over to white, like a light switch flipped on
No inbetween
All of the sudden I am ugly
My body takes up too much space
Loving myself, loving this body seem like an impossible feat
The little critic in my head is back
And he wants to move back in,
I’m not cured
Recovery is not about loving your body
Recovery is accepting it
I’m still working on that
The calculator in my head wakes up,
Regenerates every time I’m around food
My hands still hover over the diet soda before forcing myself to pick something that scares me more
I still have to bargain in my brain
Eat a salad so I can eat ice cream and cookies
Skip lunch so I can have a big dinner
Strip naked in front of a full mirror,
Watch my body standing up, bending over, sitting
Grabbing, pinching, prodding, poking
Surveying this piece of meat
This thing
This body
That I know I need to be kind to
I weighed myself for the first time in almost a year
My toe lingered over the cold surface of a scale
Like a child about to dip his feet into water
I knew standing on that scale could drag me under
And I did it anyway
Loving myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done
When self hatred has been tamped into my soul
When my eating disorder was the only thing I good at
This secret lover, the most attentive one you could have
Took my hand and showed me how an empty stomach could feel like love
My eating disorder was my best friend,
The abusive relationship I kept going back to,
The most interesting thing about me,
The thing that was killing me
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Allowing yourself to slip into a disease out of your control
Having someone else make all your decisions
Your life reduces itself to the numbers on the scale
The slipping numbers on the scale assure me that everything is alright
But I can’t live like that
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Recovery is hard
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 3:19 PM UTC
The day you left me was the day the world flipped upside down
It was the day we hit absolute zero,
The day there were no wars, no conflict, no death
The day you left me
Was the day everything I thought was impossible happened
You were the nerd, the perfectionist
Always memorizing facts of the arcane
Leaching Wikipedia articles for all they had
Too busy with science to prioritize matters of the heart
And I was too busy dissecting muffins, picturing my bones as a perfect xylophone
Imagining myself shrinking and shrinking until I was as hallow as I felt
You wanted a science experiment so bad, too bad you never realized you were dating one
You’ll never know how much I loved you
There are archives, poems stashed away of our love
Snapshots that force me back to the days when you loved me too
When a writer falls in love with you, you can never die
You will live on in the words I wrote, spend years in a dusty box tucked in the attic
But you will never be gone
And I will never forget
And you’ll never know how much I miss you
Oh, God, I miss you
I wish I’d told you I loved you more
I wish I’d counted all your freckles
I wish I’d made the time spent with you count
You told me you still wanted to be friends
But how am I supposed to be friends with someone whose lips are still stamped on my brain?
How am I supposed to be friends with the person who I thought would be my beginning and end?
How am I supposed to get over you?
I miss you so much
But I also miss the feeling of hunger, I miss sneaking off to the bathroom to rid myself of guilt, I miss the sadness that was so strong I couldn’t tell where I ended and it began
I can’t hurt myself anymore
My hands are as red with guilt as yours are
I chose depression over you
Every time I canceled plans,
Every time I pushed you away,
Every time I hid inside myself
I made you a third wheel in your own relationship,
Took the hand of depression while you watched on
Forced you to see our inside jokes
Paraded my infidelity in front of you
I have other loves now
I am head over heels in love with the human brain
I’m not much for flirting
But talk to me about the self-fulfilling prophecies and cognitive dissonance and I will fill your mind from dawn till dusk
And I am in love with words
With flipping through the pages of a book and knowing there’s a story there
With the greeting of warm papers from the printer and the click of my keyboard as I fill up empty space with life
Would I be alive to enjoy these things if it wasn’t for you?
I don’t know
But I am not obligated to take your outstretched offer of friendship
If I have learned anything in recovery it’s that I need to put myself first
I don’t owe you any friendship just so you can feel better for breaking my heart
So If I can’t be your girlfriend and I can’t be your friend
I guess that makes me nothing at all
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 10:38 PM UTC
Anorexia was the most attentive
Girlfriend anyone could ask for
And I fell hard for her
I fell for for 500 calories a day,
The sense of control it gave me
Compliments from girls I'd never talked to before
Doctors so pleased that I was finally "healthy"
That feeling,
Of stepping on the scale
And realizing that I took up less space
Than when I'd stepped on the day before
The feeling of water hitting an empty stomach
The hunger pangs
That secretly thrilled me
The thrill of the lies
The ones that became ever so easy
To slip off my tongue
The thrill of a secret love affair with death
I fell for an abuser
I fell...
Literally
Bruises lined my body
From bumping into walls
Because my body was so
Malnourished I couldn't
Walk down a hallway
Fell down a rabbit hole-
Fell down into a world I couldn't escape-
Thigh gaps, thinspiration, tips and tricks to
Hide this wonderland in your head
Walking headfirst into Anorexia was like walking
Into a haunted house
It's fun and exhilarating at first
It's a game, it's harmless
And then you realize that the doors
Are barred and it dawns on you
That ringing the doorbell of death
Was not the best idea
I am a study in skinny does not make you happy
The 5 pounds you wanted to lose
Turns to 10
Turns to 20
Turns to...
I am a study in
Every inch of your body being a warzone
Of standing in front of a mirror
Seeing nothing but a piece of meat
Taking up too much space
I am a study in calculation
I am a study in lying
I am a study in not dead, but not alive
I am a study in starvation
I am a study in falling out of love
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
I swear on my grave
That this will be the last time
I write a poem about you
I swear that this
Will be my final release
Me letting your memory go
Let some other girl spend nights thinking about you
I swear to myself
That this stream on consciousness
Placed on paper will be the last time
I waste words on you
I swear to you that this
Is the end of my feelings
That that pang of sadness
That twist of the knife will go away
I swear to Gods that I don't believe in
That I will use this as an opportunity
To learn to love myself and not
Some boy who will give it all away
I swear to everyone that
I won't look through the poetry
I wrote about you, the words you stole from me
The time I wasted, stringing words together about your smile
I can swear all I like
But here I am, crying at 10:07
Writing yet another poem about you
I swear that I'm a liar
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 10:08 PM UTC
People always tell you that it can get better
What they neglect to tell you is how much worse it gets
Before the better part comes
In every eating disorder novel,
You can always perfectly pinpoint the moment
The protagonists steps over the line of unwell
Into well
This whole 'recovery' deal sounded good enough at first
I get to eat Luna Bars,
I have positive quotes all over the place,
I meditate and do yoga all day,
I somehow reach the a level of Enlightenment
Usually reserved for Buddhist monks
And I don't have to live with a ******* eating disorder anymore
I bought a recovery journal
To talk back to my mental illness
But so far my depression has taken control of the pen
I bought a adult coloring book
To help me de-stress
But I still only want to color a river on my wrists a crimson color
I keep thinking there's a way to be a functional bulimic
Or even better, a functional anorectic
A way that I can be recovered and enlightened and normal
And still dissect each and every meal
As if I was dealing with something ***** and impure
Is it still recovery if I can't fight the voices in my head?
Is if still recovery if I don't even try?
Is it still recovery if I still can't look in the mirror,
want the outside to mirror the chaos inside,
crave sunken cheeks and fallen out hair
That I want to preform a vanishing act right before your eyes
See my skin cave in, bones protruding
I used to think that eating disorders were about beauty
But now I realize they're about pain
And perfection and punishment
And I had to live through it to see that
I seem to never be able to do anything right
And my eating disorder was supposed to remedy that
I was good at self destruction
I was good at sitting at dinner, sipping diet coke
Feeling oh, so superior and smiling brightly
As I said that I'd already eaten
And begged my stomach pains not to betray me then
But now I've failed at having an eating disorder
And at not having an eating disorder
And I can't live anymore in this shade of gray
Coloring everything and ruling my thoughts
I don't want to be in "recovery"
I want to be recovered
Because no one tells you
How you'll cry through every single meal
How you'll see yourself grow in the mirror and not know
What's real and what's not
No one tells you
That an eating disorder never goes away
That you'll never diet again
That trying to lose weight in recovery isn't a good idea
The worst thing about an eating disorder
Is that there is no such thing as abstinence
Recovery is not one decision
It is a decision you will have to make
Every time you find yourself looking down at a plate
And at first, you'll have to pray to the gods
For indulging in the sins of being a human
But someday, maybe someday
Those prayers will go somewhere else
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 8:44 PM UTC
1.
I'm sorry I'll never be able to have dinner with your family, that I'll never be able to sit down to a meal that your mother cooked, hold your hand under the table, and feel like an insider. I'll always decline to stay for dinner because I know that the anxiety over eating, over saying the wrong things would get to me and the plate set in front of me would feel like a mountain to be climbed, a spotlight exposing the fact that I am a fraud and I'm sorry for that.
2.
I'll never grow out of it. I've grown into it. The lines between It and I have become hazy and some days I don't know who I am. Some days I'm going to be a ***** some days I'm going to withdraw, some days I'm going to need you to hold me and kiss me. Some days I'll let you see the most vulnerable parts of me and other days you're not going to recognize the girl you fell in love with.
3.
I'm addicted to my eating disorder. I need the control, the pain, the punishment. The feeling of my bones under my skin keeps me going, the promise of tomorrow.
4.
They say it's love when he's the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last thing you think of before you go to bed. But my weight is always at the forefront, perpetually waiting for morning to come so I can drag myself out of bed, weigh myself and wait for the day that I feel satisfied and I know it shouldn't be this way.
5.
I love you more than I hate myself.
6.
I will never leave you here by yourself. It doesn't matter what I feel, I will never leave you wondering why. I can hurt myself, but I could never hurt you like that.
7.
I know you're trying to understand what I'm dealing with, but I honestly don't understand it myself.
8.
I'm sorry that we'll never be able to order pizza and cuddle while watching Doctor Who, I'm sorry you'll never treat me to a fancy restaurant, I'm sorry I don't know why you love me, I'm sorry I'll skip out on doing things just because I don't want to confront food, I'm sorry I'll never go trick or treating with you, I'm sorry my problems are affecting our relationship. I'm sorry that I've made it personal. I'm sorry that I've put a face to the words 'eating disorder,' I'm sorry that it's a face that you love.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
It began when I skipped lunch
When snacks became meals
And food became calories
I stopped standing and began to kneel
It started with pictures on blogs
Collar bones, thigh gap, dead eyes
Worshiping goddesses who never eat
Whose smoke curls as easy as their lies
It was about being weightless
Being skinny, being happy
To wither and fold into myself
"Somebody please look at me!"
Now my eyes are heavy
I have to hug the wall to get anywhere
Colorful bruises bloom on my legs
The room's spinning, black spots everywhere
I'm like Atlas, holding up my world
With shaky hands, bloods spattering everywhere
Step by step I keep moving, it's never enough
I'm killing myself over what size clothes I wear
Two years ago I wanted this
Asking Google a list of excuses not to eat
Now I think I'm dying, looking up heart arrhythmias
Because I can't follow a single beat
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:58 PM UTC
I sit in a flimsy plastic chair that squeaks at the slightest movement,
Ana stands because it burns more calories and says I should do the same
My arms are folded over my chest, slouching and brooding
The bracelet Ana bought me sounds like shackles when I move
The wedding band on my finger weights more than I do
"Why are you here today?" Our therapist asks
"She's been cheating on me with that **** Mia!" Ana yells
"I already told you it didn't mean anything. We were broken up then."
My explanation makes her angrier though and she snaps,
"You just can't handle commitment!"
I've heard her use this voice multiple times and a list of all the insult circumnavigates my brain
*Stupid
Ugly
Worthless
Never good enough
Unlovable
Pathetic
Fat
Fat
FAT*
"You call this uncommitted?" I point to my stomach which growls on cue
Our therapist asks how long we've been together
I say over 2 years
Ana says we've been together my whole life
I tell him she's abusive
"It doesn't look like she's done that much damage" He notes
When the hours up Ana walks to the door
I tell her I just need a minute
I turn to our therapist who's already packing up
"Please help me. I need to get our of this relationship now!"
He ***** his head up as if it's the simplest answer in the world,
"Then why don't you just eat?"
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 5:40 PM UTC
Secrets spill from your lips
In hiccuped slurry speech
That night you learned the most important lessons
Teachers never teach
You're on the fence
But you always tumble in an empty bottle
Trapped on all four sides
Looking up at the light, legs weak and wobbly
And those lines you stood by
Those boundaries began to blur
All that you believed in
Every bridge you charred and burned
Did you find the answers
Laced within those pills?
This self medication will make you numb
To what you must rebuild
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 9:22 PM UTC
Excuses, excuses-
They run through my mind
The circumstances aren't right
I'll do it next time
The time was running low
The sand slipping away
So I told you I loved you
In the last days of May
You told me you felt the same
Though it didn't show
The entire summer you left me
Feeling weary and hallow
I waited for you
To sit down and stay
Tomorrow, tomorrow
But never today
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC