They say to be like water
But I’ve always felt more like a pebble in the bed of the river

Soon I’ll just be sand

I feel like I'm a weight on others around me,
yet my head feels so light.

I can't seem to talk to anyone about it,
but that doesn't stop the inner banter.

It's no wonder I get headaches,
there's so mush chaos.

Contradicting thoughts crashing into one another,
causing vibrations to ring though my skull.

Lights dance and my blood rushes to my muscles,
but I can't move.

Love is giving someone permission to hurt you and trusting that they won't

I find myself apologizing all the time
When I do something wrong
"I'm sorry," I messed up
When I can't quite get my sentences out right
"I'm sorry," I'm taking so much of your time

Bumping into a stranger
"I'm sorry," I was in your way
Someone helping me eat
"I'm sorry," I can't do this like I should be able to

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Even when I'm alone, nothing happens and still
"I'm sorry," for taking up space

It's one in the morning, I'm alone and I'm crying and muttering
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."


"I'm sorry," I lived and you didn't.

I have a lot swimming through my mind everyday.
Recovery.
Relapse.
Restricting.
Eating.
Work.
Relationships.
Family.
Friends.
Appointments.
Body image.
Self image.
Future.
Past..
All at once.

But when I'm at a concert, a live performance, whether that be a symphony or a rock concert, I am free. It's when I'm full emersed in music, that when I don't feel like I'm drowning in anxiety. Standing up and dancing and head-banging to my favorite songs, or sitting and watching colors and designs sprout in front of my eyes as bows vibrate strings.

The only thing on my mind in those moments, is the music. Singing and dancing along, not a care in the world about what I look like or sound like. Who thinks I'm going overboard. Because the thing is, when I see other people dancing their hearts out and screaming the lyrics, it fills my own heart with such joy and love for them. They're having the time of their lives,


and I can too.

"They're going to see how fat you really are if you eat in front of them. "
  no, they'll know I'm working on recovery.. this is recovery
"You didn't eat breakfast, so the day is already off to a good start. Why ruin it?"
i need to eat... food is good for me. it is fuel
"Food is fat. "
youre wrong
"Am I?"
...
"When you were in that awful place and they made you eat you gained, didn't you?"
yes but..
"You. Gained. Weight. "
my heart was in trouble
"They were lying. You weren't even underweight yet. We haven't reached our goal. "
maybe..
"We can still reach our goal. "
i don't know
"See? That wasn't so hard. Like old times, a lie here, a lie there. It's nothing. "
nothing..
"You're doing much better. "
i feel so tired
"That's from carrying all that extra fat on your body. "
they want me to go back to treatment
"NO. Everything we've worked for would be RUINED!!"
i don't feel good
"You're fine. You're beautiful. You're thin. "
my chest hurts
"You just need to do more cardio"


"Hello?"

"We reached our goal my love. Congratulations. You're all bone. "

Possible
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder?

Certain things trigger thoughts and emotions, in me.
Almost like memories but not quite.

I imagine myself in the situation I just saw (whether in a movie or TV show) and I am over come with the urge to scream and cry. To hit things around me.

But I don't know why. I can't figure out what it is, why I feel a connection to it. I role play online the situations, and I fight like hell.

I don't know why.

I don't know why I want to play these scenes out, why I want to fight. Why I want to feel like I'm in it.

I don't understand.

Nothing has ever happened to me. Nothing like that. I'm hurting and

I don't know why.

It's funny that something that could **** you
Something that probably will **** you
Can be so comforting

It's the one reliable thing you have
It's easy to fall into the patterns again
It's easy to hide it (to a point, but by that time you're too far gone)

Because it feels so good
To have your body disintegrate
To have your head swim and hands shake
It's better then the alternative, at least

I don't want to feel like I'm losing myself
But that may be the only way to go
Until my bones, my veins, they show
Because the alternative is **too dangerous

I am not comfortable in my own skin, I am not comfortable looking at my own body.
I hate that my body is often looked on by others, it makes me feel *****. But I love being touched. I love kissing.
I hate when they say my name, though. It sounds like a bad word. Something that doesn't fit. But I love my name. I love how it sounds.
I hate hearing from a mans mouth, it comes out tainted. I hate feeling squeamish when anyone compliments my body. I hate that I immediately want to cut into my skin when someone tells me I'm beautiful, or that they love my curves.

I put walls up made of cinder blocks
Each one a lie uttered by a former love

There was a gate, covered in keyless locks
But soon even that was a weakness to the doves

So I build another line, cement and glued together thoughts and painful sensations
It was an ugly wall, but all the better to keep things away

Each time someone chipped a peice away I would it was replaced without hesitation
"May I come in?" You call, "Maybe another day"

this isn't what my life was suppose to be like

i did not want to grow up to be who I am today

   it's hard to think of being different, though

    my whole life i've been counting objects, dates, everything

     when I was little and had a stomach ache i'd count the tile on the ground

      when I was a little older i would count the days my brother was gone

       i would count the trees and posts on the drive up to the hospital

        i would count the minutes while waiting for my dad to pick us up

         there came a day when counting the days became too much

         my brother was gone, and was not coming back

          so I started counting steps, i counted calories

           i counted how many times I chewed something

            and i counted scars and red lines on my body

             i learned to count objects and things I could control

              like how many spaces before a paragraph starts

               because I knew that I could not count ON anyone

When I'm upset about something, I walk
I'll walk a mile or two until I find a swing set
There's a swing set in my backyard- but being that close to everything is not what I want
I want to be where I normally wouldn't be
Some place where people will not know me, and in Utah if you go a mile you're in a whole new area with hundreds of new faces
It didn't occur to me why I always wound up on a swing set, my initial intent was to only walk
Today I realized it
When you feel so weighed down by your worries and troubles, nothing feels better than that split second of weightlessness at the peak of each swing
In that moment nothing else matters
You can look up at the sky and know that you're not alone, nor are your burdens always as heavy as they were in the moments before

Over the years I have realized that I do not know how to love slowly
Or carefully
I fall for someone instantly
I'm just good at hiding it, at acting like I have a normal level of admiration for someone given the time we've known each other.
But that is not me.
I throw myself into situations, knowing that it could go up in flames.

But the threat of being burned does not out weigh the excitement of feeling the heat.

At the mention of your name I am thrown into such sadness.

Memories hit me like a brick wall and I am flattened.

Tv shows
Movies
Commercials
They all make fun of mental illnesses.

Anorexia is not a funny teenage boy that can be cured with Jesus shaped pancakes.

You pull me back just to push me out again.
You broke me for a fourth time.
I don't know how you put it back together every time, but you do.
I trust you again and again.

Why do I keep taking the same road when I know it's riddled with *** holes and dead ends?

I forgot how intoxicating your smell is.

I forgot how beautiful you make me feel.

They say your first heart break will be the worst,

but they didn't warn me about how bad it gets after the third heartbreak from that same love.

My thoughts are an angry ocean and I've been tossed out to sea.
I'm drowning.
Lord calm them, please.

The numbness fades and it hits me all at once-
The crashing waves of ten thousand heart breaks

Two broken people picking up the pieces
Trying to make each other whole with shards of their own glass
Attempting to make something beautiful
And daring to call it *love

I can't take a full breath in, it feels like there's a weight on my chest.
A cinder block, with our initials inside a heart, etched onto the side.

I'm down here drowning and you're throwing water at me because you think I'm partched.

Listen to me, please.

Who would have thought that breath would ever be something that you have to focus on to make happen

Yet here I am, holding my breath because I forgot to think to exhale

I can not get enough air in and it feel like a block of ice is on my chest holding me down, freezing me out. I feel like I'm drowning but there's no water in sight.

I drove towards your house the other day
I nearly turned into your street.. I was on auto pilot.

Just that day you had sent me a message and asked if I wanted to meet for coffee.
I think it's funny that you're the one in a relationship and yet I'm the one who said no.
You have no idea what it took for me to decline your offer.
But I had to protect you.. I wasn't going to let you ruin your relationship for a 16oz beverage that would burn our throats and start a ripple effect of pain.

Being physically close to someone does not bother me- I like being touched. I like hugging and the feeling of someone running their fingers over my back and arms.
But once that physical touch gets a little too close to emotion I push it away. Once someone starts to feel like they have feeling for me, or that I for them, I immediately think of ways to push them away in such a slight way that they do not realize what is happening.
Because the truth is.. The fingerprints left on my skin, the touch I can not scrub away in the shower, will be gone. I will have a new set of skin in a matter of weeks. Skin that hasn't been touch, hasn't been tainted with someone's prints.
But the words that they said to me will forever be printed on my heart. Each letter stamped into my mind where it'll wait to hurt me again, filed away under "Do not go back" until it gets dark and I wander through the shelves trying to find someone, something to occupy myself with. Something to remind myself that I was not always this alone..

You said you didn't want to lose me
That you wouldn't know what to do

But you certainly knew how to say
"I don't love you anymore" and you knew how to walk away.

I get so confused when I think
because I'm so hungry but I
about recovery. Sometimes I want
don't want to eat, or because
it so badly, and other times
I ate and I wasn't suppose to an once
I do not fight the urges at
I get inside I know I have to
all. I use to limit myself to
get rid of it all. Have to. Some
certain times and specific places.
nights it's me kneeling on the
Obviously we went past that line
bathroom floor, rocking back and forth
ages ago. Sorry. I want to be
holding my head in my hands
normal so badly. I don't like
because I'm trying to silence the
having anxiety that makes me
voice screaming insults and telling
Shake after I eat. I don't like
me to do what I hate doing.
not feeling safe in my house
Maybe I don't hate it as much
to the point that I just sit
as I'd like to say. I've lost weight
in my car for hours before
and I love that more than I hate
finally entering. It's always
the burn of acid and empty ache.
different too. Sometimes it's

you said you were always going to be there
           but where are you now?
it's dark, and cold
     I am utterly alone drowning in this
         feeling of being
empty

Sometimes I look down at my hands and I realize that I do not know who is controlling them. I do not feel like I'm me, when I look in the mirror there's always a voice in the back of my head convincing me that what I am seeing is not really there, that I am not in fact the being staring back at me. My hands are not my hands, my legs are not my legs, and my face isn't my face. It's like I'm living, but through someone else. But I don't want to be someone else anymore, I want to be me. But who am I?

And you're rocking again, but not like you use to.
Your knees are no longer drums
but they are still bruised
And your fingers are no longer drumsticks
but your knuckles are still red

There is no melody to air guitar to
And there is no chorus to yell out
But oh darling,
there is fighting
So keeping rocking away.

I didn't use to cry over boys
Then you happened
You *******- you ruined everything
I had a perfectly constructed castle built
With little green soldiers protecting the gates
I catapulted marbles and gumballs, trying to keep you away.
But you came anyways
And with a Trojan horse
I let you in and you ******* broke me from the inside
You torn down my castle like it was made of cards
Three words held the power to blow it all down
And I cried.
I cried my eyes out when we parted ways.

A year later and I don't think the castle I constructed is as strong
Because another came along
And he trampled the green soldiers
He ripped right through the walls
And here I am again, considering digging a moat
That will surely be filled with saltwater for sharks

Things I didn't have control of:
-Mom&Dad; getting a divorce
-My brother being sick
-Mom having to leave for days at a time to stay at the hospital with my brother
-Having a new mom and two new siblings
-Dad living 45 minutes away
-Dad not being there
-Dad drinking
-Staying at Grandma's when I was sick
-That boy's actions and words in middle school
-My step mom cheating on my dad
-Losing three people that I had grown up with and loved
-My brother passing away
-Him cheating on me
-My co-worker lying to our boss saying that I bullied her because I was best friends with her now ex-boyfriend
-Another boy's actions when I told him I couldn't be in a relationship at the time
-Him telling me that he doesn't love me anymore
-Breaking my body in an accident and spending the entire summer recovering
-Other peoples' happiness and comfort

Things I have control of:
-How I react to the actions of others
-My own happiness
-The music I listen to
-What I eat
-When I work out and how hard
-If my room is clean or not (which it usually is)
-How I treat myself

*Yeah.. I can see why.

"I was really kind about it, I didn't lose my head or anything."
"See.. There's a difference between being nice and being a doormat. You have a tendency to treat others better than you treat yourself."
shrug*
"You say things to yourself that you would never allow someone to say about another person."

Hold my hand when we walk or put your arm around my shoulder
2. Surprise me with random kisses
3. Stay up late with me and tell me your secrets
4. Tell me your fears and your heartbreaks
5. Watch the stars with me
6. Pay attention to when I'm quiet, ask questions
7. Please.. ask questions
8. If something is bothering you- tell me. We'll work it out
9. When you see something that worries you, bring it to me
10. When I'm acting childish just laugh with me
11. When we're fighting and I'm pacing the room with my hands shaking as they clasp each other trying to find something to say hidden in my skin- hold your hands around mine and pull me to your chest. Hold my head and tell me it's going to be okay
12. Just hold me when I cry and stroke my back let the ocean drain and then you can ask questions about what the salty water was covering
13. When I'm looking at my hands again, searching for those **** words that have to be hidden between my fingers lift my chin so I'm looking at you. Sometimes the only way to get me to talk is to force it out of me- refuse to leave until we're done, until you know I'm okay.
14. Coffee will always fix a bad day, but remember what time it is and how caffeine affects me.
15. When we're standing in the kitchen and your favorite song starts playing pull me to you and dance with me. Twirl me around and rest your hand around my waist.
16. Sing to me. Play for me. Show me your talents.  
17. Remember how easily I get chilled
18. Remember that I will make so many mistakes it'll make you crazy but you just have to stick it out with me and I swear I will fix things
19. When you say you love me.. Dear god please mean it. Mean every syllable. Mean it like the breath leaving your lungs is the last you'll have.
20. Know that when I say that I love you, I mean it with every fiber of my being.

What do you do?
When someone tells you that they don't love you anymore?

Two weeks ago I got in an accident while mountain biking. I broke my collar bone and fractured my sternum. Abrasions covered my back, my hip had a puncture wound that turned into a hematoma and was swollen 2inches (I couldn't wear pants for a full week). I hit the ground with such force that air was forced out of my lungs and into the sack around my heart. I spent 18 hours in the ICU and three more days in the hospital after.

A long time ago I crashed. I crashed after you left. My ribs were caving in and making it hurt to breath, my cheeks burned, I swore to god my heart was never going to be okay again. The pain in my chest was incredible. The worst pain I have ever felt was when you left.

I flew over my handle bars two weeks ago and rolled down the mountain and still your absence hurts me more.

They say follow your dreams
And all I want is to go home
There is a problem, you see

I don't know where home is

Happiness: The ultimate goal, right?
We all want to be happy
We all want to feel fulfilled.

We see pictures of smiling, skinny bodies
and we know what happiness looks like.
It looks like thin faces
frail arms
tiny legs
concave stomachs

The first step to being happy is
looking
the part.

A sea of faces rages before me
Memories flashing across my vision- blindingly bright
I'm afraid I may never see past them again
Voices are thrown from all directions
yelling
screaming
crying
I can see myself in a tempered rage
Throwing things and yelling out
I'm not in my body anymore
I am a mere spectator- a wisp
a cloud
vulnerable to the world around me

When I was little I use to get sick a lot
I would sleep sitting up, or on the tile in the bathroom.
I would cry for my mom in the night as my stomach rids itself of the food I had eaten that day.

When I was little I use to stand in front of the mirror
I would turn from side to side, stand on my toes and **** in
I would cry to my mom, I thought I was fat. She told me I had a wide rib cage and I cried harder because that meant there was no hope.

When I was a little older I use to watch what I ate at lunch
I would sit with my boyfriend and his friends, I covered my mouth after each bite.
I would always be sure to leave food on my plate, and I never got sweets when I sat with them.
I would cry to myself- I thought for sure they were judging me by my plate

Now, I still stand in front of the mirror with tears streaming down my cheeks
I never eat breakfast or lunch, and I eat half my dinner.
I no longer cry for my mom when I rid myself of any food I have eaten-
instead I pray that she can't hear.

I want to know the course that the rivers beneath your skin take

I want to know the valleys in your heart and how deep they go

I want to know the canyons in your bones and who put them there

I want to know who's initials are carved into your mind

and the memories that they can no longer call "mine"

Eyes of glass and body of stone
Your arms have become my home.

But I've never blushed easily
And your touch engines the blood beneath my cheeks so relentlessly.