I had an eating disorder without knowing.
I would place the threads into my mouth and strangle them across the roof of my tounge, scrapping them across my teeth intrigued by it's ever changing texture.
There was once a cloth, a prayer mantle, it was first used to cradle each baby of this family, then it became the cloth my father placed over his body as he prayed in the depths of the night.
I pulled a piece out of that mantle, a thread at a time until the one thread became two and the two became three then three became seven until I was fully addicted to the feel of an object my body was not meant to consume.
That mantle became deshaped, disheveled by my constant pulling and tugging, all done to fulfill my yearning to feel it's ever changing texture on the caresses of my tounge.
I would try and stop myself from walking to that cloth.
I would hate my self for being so weird, and easily compromised.
The words of another telling me that I was a big girl and I shouldn't be doing that at my big age.
I tried to stop.
I really did, but whenever I did it called my name.
Whenever I was stressed, It comforted me.
Whenever I was sad it held my hand.
After a lost battle with lust it was like a cigarette wrapped over my hand,
Making my tounge water and my tummy gurgle.
It was the drug I could never get over.
One day, my father came to me and asked me why I had done this to his treasured mantle, I stood in silence, my heart pounding unable to answer his question, my heart clenched with regret and shame as what I had done was less than humane.
His eyes filled with confusion and pain.
It was the thing that cloaked him in his time of war and defence.
It was his armour in battle as he knelt to defend all that he loved in prayer.
And I had destroyed it.
The once blanket had become coaster of tassels.
And I was to blame, me and my weird desires, my lack of self control, my unappealing appetite for the insane.
This year I found out that my stronghold was an eating disorder.
What I thought was a symptom of madness was actually something I needed help with.
Back then, I went to God, asking him to deliver me from my addiction, I mustered up my strength, pulled what was left of the prayer mantle out of an old suitcase and I placed it in a bin bag ready for it's collection.
Those hard 3 weeks turned into some months and then I relapsed, the pain and condemnation that came with knowing I was doing something that caused damage to my health, I saw the proof of that damage every week still I shamefully persisted.
To this day I struggle with pica, but some days are better than others because I know God has given me strength to conquer these fleshly desires that leads me into pain.
God has brought me so far because there where some days I could not leave my house without a handful of shame threads in my pocket.
Now I am sitting here writing this poem overriding my flesh in His strength.
Thank you God for how far you have brought me and how far you will take me in this journey.
Pica.
Pica is the craving or consumption of objects that are not normally intended to be consumed. It is classified as an eating disorder but can also be the result of an existing mental disorder.
The ingested or craved substance may be biological, natural or manmade. Wikipedia