I am under the microscope
I put myself here
I didn't know
How far it would go
Years in, and I am slowly dissected
Habits up for scrutiny
Emotions analyzed
Demeanor reviewed
Constantly screened
For any hint of disorder
Perhaps I am lucky
That help is at my finger tips
But it feels like a curse
When sickness is your soul
And it lives on through treatment
Through love
Through the microscope

We sit across from each other
Both occupied with electronic devices
Not talking
Though there is much to talk about
Hardly glancing
When comments are offered
Brief and lost on deaf ears
Bouncing off a hard surface
I can't talk to you
Because your ears are cement
And only mumbles make their way through
I have something important to say
But your ears are unavailable
So maybe it's not that important after all
I brim silently with feelings
No where to put them
You are already full of god knows what

Like pop up adds in my mind
Thoughts that carry hidden viruses
But act like click bate
Louring me in as if there is more to discover
But it's a trick
They hijack me
They pick me apart from the inside
Their constant stream of invasion
Wears me down to tears
But sleep doesn't come
To those that overthink

Anxiety rests heavy hands on my head
Molding my perception
With it's unrelenting pressure
I am left to wonder
Why I so acutely suffer
Do I deserve this?
For living in cognitive dissonance?

I'm an over flowing cup
I'm pasta boiling up

I'm over my head
Trying in water to tread

I'm pushing at the seams
Between reality and dreams

I'm rhyming for no reason
Except to mark the change of season

Watch my bones extrude
from a thin layer of flesh
stretched over my skeletal form

Is this what control looks like?

Is this how I want to present to the world?
impossibly small
startlingly small

Or should I take up space?
unapologetic and proud

That's the goal
that's the plan
tiny in the distance
a real destination

I am fighting
Naked and succumb by waves
That crash with relentless force
Over my body cold and shivering
Extremities going numb

I am fighting
It might look like I don't stand a chance
But I'll stand unwavering
Until the waves grow tired
Of trying to erode my human shape

I never feel that I am productive.
Not productive enough.
Change the world somehow, everyday.
Those are my standards and I have never met them.
So I have to sit with myself every night.
Feeling disappointment and self loathing.
"You didn't do anything great today,"
a voice taunts me.
"Why are you even here if you don't contribute."
But what is contribution really?
Can't it be small?
It has to be small because I can't make it big.
I have to learn to appreciate my small self.
If I make someone smile,
if I write a poem,
if I walk the dogs,
why can't those things count?
I have to learn to count them
because they are all I have.
I can't be great but I can be good in small ways
and who knows, maybe they will add up to great someday.

My days are made of moments.
My years are made of days.

******* food
It consumes me because I don't consume it
I'm so tired of the disorder
I've exhausted all the words around it
All these revolving door conversations
I have to eat my way out of this
That's the only way the topic will change
I have to eat to change my relationships
I can't wait for the day
That the topic changes

Daily I make the decisions.
Do I eat or do I restrict?
Restrict, a word added to my vocabulary by treatment.
I never thought of it as restriction.
In that context, it implies choice.
The choice baffles me.
We need food like we need air, a friend once said.
I'd never deprive anything the way I deprive myself.
Yet it is in deprivation I feel the most secure.

I want to find my voice
So I can talk to him
With relevant words
That convey my truest feelings
Then I want to be embraced
As a congratulations
For this indescribably difficult task

"Anyone can be happy at anytime."
My father's words.
To his suffering child.
Anyone, Dad?

The coming down of the day
The descent to rest
Time to be close
Couches and shows
And close bodies
Processing your day
With the one you love
Taking refuge

Good moods used to promise themselves to me,
convincing me things could stay that way.
That something had changed for good.
But they don't.
So I was left betrayed.
And disappointed.
Because the of lows that follow.
Eminent and looming.  
And you can never out run them.
Not with innocent denial,
or hand fulls of pills.
With every high there is a low.
Just like peaks and valleys.
And so I struggle to stand tip toed.
When I already know whats down that road.

I used to be comforted
by the sound of ocean waves outside my window.
I used to sigh in and out with each current pull.
A heave forward.
A drag backward.
Reliable.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
In and out. In and out.
I used to breath with the water.
And it was simple.

For me there is no easy way.
But I struggle with the best of them.
Wonderful people with demons you wouldn't believe.
Whole, loving souls who deserve everything and anything.
I walk with these people.
We wade through the dire, hopeless trenches of disease.
Mental demons as individual as they are alike.
One day maybe the beauty I see in them will reflect the beauty they see in me.
Because they tell me I'm strong too.
And deserving.
And they should believe me, I know it.
So why shouldn't I believe them?

I am not the monster inside of you
I am a host for monsters inside of me
But those monsters are internal
Unique to me and the orchestraters of my suffering
Like your monsters are not mine
My monsters are not yours

At Intake
I could never have imagined
The agony this journey had in store
For me
And me alone

At intake
I shook with anxiety
But took comfort in protruding bones
on both sides of my hips
At least

At intake
I was naive
I was unlike the other patients
I was so different
I'd never be them

At intake
I just didn't know
How much I would struggle
How much I would loose
What hideous things would come forth

I put in too much
and yield little crop
like an over watered garden
the intention was there
I gifted all my effort
there was no lack of care
but the fruit came up bare
and the vegetables drowned
so my little garden failed

Medicate me
lay me down again
another night
where worries slip away
for moments before sleep
in an imaginary world
where logic falls apart
to an insanity I can keep

Don't leave me to my own devices
the same ones that cut up my arms
whisk me far away from my demons
just for the night
I'll be better tomorrow

They tell me I am disordered
That the disease skews my vision
But I can't help that what I see first hand
Rings more truth that expert opinions

A battle of logic
A reassessment of my past
Solid justifications?
Or am I with in the wrath?

I drink the coffee every morning
Even though it makes my stomach uneasy
And my hands shake

I skip breakfast in the morning
And set precedent for the day
And the hunger aches

I do it anyway
There is something about rituals
In which I give more than I take

Today I think I failed myself
By the habit's hands I am a hostage
My the liar's mouth I am a slave
Wakefulness is my price to pay
Sleep obviously eludes me
Actions obviously exclude me

Everyday I show up
After the privilege of sleeping at home
To partial hospitalization
A step down from residential
Now they feed my six meals a day
And my whole body resists
As I choke down my meal plan
And cry an internal song
Of repetitive stories
Terrified of my changing shape
Doubtful of their expertise
A frustration beyond myself
A secret plan to return
To my comfortable place
Where I starve into emotional regulation
A safe place to rest a weary, threatened head
How will I ever get better?

I won't tell anyone
What happened to my body
When I was too young to stop it
It is a secret
I've clothed myself with the burden
Let it bore holes in my little soul
I won't tell anyone
What happened to my body

Medicate me now!
I need relief and quickly
From torment internally
From wounds you can't see
I need your release
I am suffering
This is defeat
Medicate me.

The ******* roots of this thing are unbelievable.
They grow right into the crux of my inner most cognition.
Where the gears and bolts and pipes
and all the unseen mechanics of my little mind reside.
They grow inside and through and around.
They clog gears,
burst pipes,
loosen bolts.
I have weeds in my mind,
the kind that suffocate their host.
A fiery invasive species,
the ones that respect only fire and pesticides.

No, no, no,
I'm falling!

Like before but a different cliff.
It's steeper, much less gradual.
So I before I could stop it,
I had already tripped.

I feel my flame flicker from blatant lack of fuel.

Today was pretend
My own display of good health
Treatment taught me stealth

I am obsessed with me
And the space I occupy
Just to manipulate it
I betray you with lies

I cast charade
I make habits out of deceit
All so you don't know
what I don't eat

Eating together is bonding
but I can only manage half

Your eyes are a hazel terrain
A land foreign like mars
With valleys and peaks
Of yellows, browns and greens
And hints of frozen oceans

Your eyes are the geography
Of somewhere hidden and forgotten
A place I am supposed to navigate
But love, I'm so bad with directions

So give me more time
I plead
You know I have a handicap
And I will keep on trying
To orient the map

I am a mutation,
an anomaly,
unique,
a rarity,
and other words,
that mean different,
and alone.

I had this dream last night
In it we were at my grandparent's
I was home and surrounded with a flawed sort of people
My flawed sort of people
And I was totally preoccupied
With my weight and the space I take up
And the joy of their company was lost on me

If I went home today that is how it would be
I would be preoccupied
Life would be lost on me
The number on the morning scale
The number of my worth for that day
A number with the ability to crush me
And tape me back together
A power no individual has
Just that number
I want to reassign my values
Outrun this whole mental knot I have tied
But I can't
So I keep the company of other's disorders
In treatment
Still

Maybe if I defined it
I could achieve it concretely
I just want a little credit
From my own racing mind
And an OK to take a break
With out the guilty looks from inside

I woke up with out hope for this day
So I stayed in bed until noon
A luxury afforded only to the undeserving

Maybe my thoughts were meant to flow
But I've created dam
In stagnant water
I bathe

I am too much the same.
Pattern after pattern of pointless intent.
I can't break it.
I can't bare it.
I want to smash myself to pieces.
Put them back in a different way.
I want you all to witness,
The very painful day.

The gravity of loneliness
It heaves and sighs like shifting ice
That moans like whales in the night time
It's weight I've grown accustom to
Settled down solid on my bones
My bare shoulders ache and bend
My spine curves under the pressure
I pray for a tectonic shift
Havoc to my structure ingrained
Groundwork for new ways to relate

I have a million scars
They all tell a different story
Some are small futile attempts at relief
Almost unnoticeable
but there all the same
They speak of desperate anxiety and release

Others are wide, gleaming red
Undeniably severe
Calling attention
To a mind once unwound
An attempt to destroy myself

Every scar is intimate
But up for honest inquiry
Of a genuine nature
An innocent curiosity
I will tell you about the scars
If you know how to ask

Thrown into action by a steady hand
I dance on flat surfaces
And defy sense of gravity
Catch the eye of lookers eye
Steady on, steady onward
I can't see a thing
The world is a blur
And I begin to wobble
Big clumsy strides
Try in vain to save balance
Three more desperate tries
Before I topple
Time tells imperfection
Momentum lost
Shows over
Spin me again, with a steady hand

I want to burn indignant
with flames of the pain I harbor.
Let them lick the faces of those who have cared to glance.
Singe their ****** hair
and inspire a sense of awe.
Because what I carry,
I don't think they comprehend
So fitting then,
In flames it ends.

Why not take a step towards recovery now?
I can step a away next, if I want to.  
A step might be my only way to find footing
in a space that wants to swallow me whole.
That wants my whole life for nothing.
For appearances and comfort in skin.

What is my purpose here?
The entertain?
To save the masses?
To connect through a bleeding heart
to all my fellow man?
Am I here to make a work of art,
or save lives of unspoken souls?
Is there any chance I can do all those things?
Or is this my inevitable fall?

I just can't out run this feeling
That comes at the end of my days
The creeping sums of my failures
Grip me hard and fast by the throat
Pills can offer numbness for now
So I take them liberally
But they're not a sort of answer
Just an artificial night's sleep

I was born too early
so I lived in artificial warmth
with no touch
and I have a feeling it left me
very prone to being alone
even in the presence of love and support
I stiffen like I did when I was a baby
and some one was trying to hold me
I was born to be alone

I'm empty
So I look to my finger tips
To scavenge the internet
Looking for meaning
Or emotional leaning
I've never really found it
Whatever it is I search for
But I keep coming back
Despite my record of regret

I am a body of discontentment
Arms and legs of regret
Fingers of lies
A face of deceit
A torso of promised potential
All the parts together
Make up my human shape