it’s so hard to grasp the letters that keep f          
                                                                ­             a    
                                                                ­                     l
                                                                ­                  l    
                                         ­                                             i
                                                                ­               n      
                                                         ­                           g  
down the notebook page.

i try to hold them lovingly with my not so delicate hands but they                                                             ­                                                   
           l                                                                ­                                          
              e       ­                                                                 ­                                
          a                     ­                                                                 ­                                    
                k
through my fingers
and i watch them as they climb my walls and
jump on my bed
they flee through the glitching door
and through the floor
some go through the window cracks
i try to warn them that it’s raining outside,
but they stick their tongues out,
letting out impish laughs
and run for their lives
and disappear between the thick raindrops

right above my head a group of cursive ghost letters
exit through the ceiling
amidst the chaos one of them falls
and lands on the blank notebook

it’s the letter D
for Despair

05/25/2018

i think that the crippling, 12 month long period of dissociation that plagued my ability to do everything that i once loved is starting to go away. i drove the thirty miles to the point of the island where there are no more bodies of land for as far as the eye can see - i rekindled my friendship with the ocean today. i built a fort out of all of the driftwood that had gotten caught in the swell and swept to shore, i smoked my spirit blind, and when the sun went away and it started to rain i cried and i cried.

breakfast is the most important meal of the day
which is something i would laugh off
as my stomach would growl in my nutritions class
and i learned to inhale sharply to somehow combat the noise
the noise of my stomach screaming to the world in that backstabbing way
that i am not eating breakfast
nor did i eat much of dinner
nor will i want to be able to stomach anything for lunch

“i’m completely normal”
my eating habits aren’t rapidly fluctuating
i’m not sleeping during completely random times of the day
trying to sleep off my body’s hunger
like i can sleep off frustration
(nutrients are a constant need
they don’t just stop being things you need
because you just don’t want anything
in your body anymore)

you used to want so much

what’s so baffling is that sometimes
hunger can feel like the muffled conversation
riddled with worry
hunger is the knocking on the door
telling you that it wants to come in
and you don’t want it to
but for a reason you know makes no sense
but it makes perfect sense in the moment

when your brain shakes hands with itself
and tells you that eating is for when the work is done
when the reward is deserved
that a need is a want
and needs are intangible things that keep you socially alive
rather than actually
and then you ask yourself
if you, wanting to feel alive
is the problem

when i don’t eat
i am empty
i don’t make ****** functions
because my body cannot function
and when i function,
my body is empty
and to keep my body empty
i do not eat

there is no beauty in feeling hollow

breakfast is the most important meal of the day
which is something i would laugh off
as i could barely stand up in a hot shower
as i could barely utter a conscious word
without overworking my brain
my brain that shakes hands with itself
to communicate with itself
that i do not deserve to eat food
i do not deserve to feel alive

i want eating
to feel normal
i want to put
priority on food
but i cannot bear
to feel present
but i cannot bear
to be present
when i do not
feel present
because i am
not present
i am not
me