There is no such thing as a child of an alcoholic. There are children, and then there are alcoholics. One will never harmonize with the other.

Because alcoholics are never parents. They are shells, empty casings of love mixed with a burning taste of whiskey.

They are echoes of slurred, “Goodnight, I love you.” and “See you in the morning.” Each word filled with love, but blinded by the haze of liquor, so strong it fills your eyes with tears.

But most importantly, a child of an alcoholic will never be a child. No matter their age, they have gained the experience of those five times their age. They have watched life end with each tip of the bottle, but begin again when the sun breaks through their window.

I read stories about children who spend their days without a care in the world. And as a child, I wanted nothing more than that for myself. I wanted the carelessness, not the impossible burden of responsibility and secrecy that I held, hand in hand with resentment and hatred for the people who raised me.

There is no such thing as a child of an alcoholic. It’s not that we don’t exist— we do. But a child will never be a child when their parents can never be a parent.

We're anything and everything but atypical.

Anorexia. Bulimia. OSFED, binge or orthorexia.

Hell, there's even hybrids now: diabulimia.

There's a name for every demon I've eaten. For the thing that lives inside of me; feeding off of starvation.

There's power in it. You know, the kind of sick courage that comes from skipping meals and counting calories.

Lower numbers, lower anxieties.

When you're thin it's an eating disorder, they say.

When you're fat it's called a diet, they say.

We're surviving on pills and Coke Zero. This isn't the 80's, honey, SlimFast doesn't work as well as ******* do.

I was taught that pain is beauty, but laxatives on an empty stomach are far from pretty.

I don't want to be beautiful, I want to be nothing. Not a thing in this world. What do I want?

To be like an Angel: perfection on the inside and out.

To be both powerful and protected. In control and out of it.

Is this Schrodinger's eating disorder?

It goes deeper than food. Farther than the veins; blue and translucent underneath my skin.

I'm cold and gone, honey. This thing has got a hold on me.

I'm water, tea, early mornings and late nights. Scales, chewing gum and breath mints.

I'm crushed by the weight hanging off of my bones, and I don't know how to get better.

My eyes are not sunlit windows to my own self, rather dimmed and tinted blockades to never give you a full picture. They are not a colourful array of flowers, they are dull and wilting weeds.

My lungs cannot breathe in and smell the roses because they are laced with tar, and not enough oxygen from shallow breathing. They are restricted from fulfilling out their purpose so I can feel 'okay.'

My ears will not listen to the buzzing of bees and the gentle wind- they will, however, listen to the screams between them and confuse help with hate.

My tongue does not taste of honeysuckle and mint, but rather ash and dried blood from tasting my existence. It formulates words laced with too much sleep and too little self care.

My fingertips do not touch as if I am handling the daintiest of flower petals, instead they trace a gravestone between my ribs with a purpose. They tear at my own skin and hair, or at least try to.

Do not devalue my battleground of a body by comparing it to a garden

there is a girl who wanders. who finds the beauty in all and finds herself in it as well. in every upturned rock and flower picked, a bit of her own is discovered as well, a new color, a smell, another layer of an endless aura. she would pull apart the stems of plants to see the water pour out, and lick the sweet of honeysuckles until she was sick to her stomach. everyone knew her as the girl who wanders, the girl whose head was stuck in the clouds, so much so that she memorized them, counted the blades of grass and watched the dew appear every morning. she was one with nature as it was with her...
until the day she began to wonder.

the facts she once knew of the earth began to turn into questions; into 'how' and 'why's, and the beauty no longer appeared, it now existed. she was searching instead of finding, feeling lost as she reeled through the forest. she thought, "why do the baby birds fall from the trees and never return? who would let such a thing occur?". every turn and twist morphed into something unanswered, her mind became filled with thoughts. it became so full, there were no flowers to grow anymore and nothing new to flourish them. now, when she pulled apart the stem of the plant, she would complain of the stickiness of it, how it contaminated her fingers. she would glare at how the dew dampened her new shoes, how the rocks made scrapes on her feet and the smell of pollen would make her sneeze. she felt grown up, but at the same time, empty (although filled with questions). every day was a repeat of the last, something always new to ruminate over and nothing to give her peace of mind.
nothing was fun anymore.
it all grew a bit too tiring for her.

on some days, the earth would try to remind her, to bring her back to it, but it was always unsuccessful. it would whisper in her ear, "please come back, we miss you..." but the coldness of the wind startled her and she hissed at the way it ruffled up her hair. there was no point, she wasn't the same girl anymore. instead of being filled with wander and discovery, she was bitter and empty. she went through life as if she was on the outside of it, looking in, barely able to reminisce on her old ways, only jealousy and sadness accompanied those thoughts...
ghost thoughts...she would call them. transparent and far away, something she could hardly imagine were real.

she would grow apart from the things she loved, too distracted to look back and rethink her actions. instead she trudged forward, only ever feeling grounded in her sleep.
ever so slowly, her sleep began to feel a bit more permanent. she would sleep and sleep and sleep, hoping that maybe in her dreams, she would find her way back to the forest. she never did.

she would sleep until her eyes became heavy, heavy, heavy, and heavier until she could no longer hold them up. into a deep sleep she tumbled...

and still there the forest did not appear.