To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates
        & International Bards 1986

Stand up against governments, against God.

Stay irresponsible.

Say only what we know & imagine.

Absolutes are coercion.

Change is absolute.

Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.

Observe what's vivid.

Notice what you notice.

Catch yourself thinking.

Vividness is self-selecting.

If we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything.

Remember the future.

Advise only yourself.

Don't drink yourself to death.

Two molecules clanking against each other requires an observer to become
        scientific data.

The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
        world after Einstein.

The universe is subjective.

Walt Whitman celebrated Person.

We Are an observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.

Universe is person.

Inside skull vast as outside skull.

Mind is outer space.

"Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound."

First thought, best thought.

Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.

Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.

Syntax condensed, sound is solid.

Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.

Consonants around vowels make sense.

Savor vowels, appreciate consonants.

Subject is known by what she sees.

Others can measure their vision by what we see.

Candor ends paranoia.

                
                                        Kral Majales
                                        June 25, 1986
                                        Boulder, Colorado

It starts with a slip,
A turn of the cheek.
Simply forgetting to fit,
A meal for your body to keep.

You see, at this point,
It isn’t really starving.
For I forget only when I’m not hungry.
But the problem is,
I’m so used to being hungry
That I can’t tell the difference.

I thought I was better,
Until my boyfriend asked why he’s never seen me eat.
Until I was asked when the last time I ate was.
Until I faint, and I’m reminded to eat.

But now when I eat,
I have an Apple.
But I get sick,
Because it was too much food.

I can’t keep anything down,
So I have no choice but to not eat.

And so the cycle repeats.

I want to feel.
I want to cry again at night
so I can't lose sight
of what matters.

I want to feel.
I want to be happy even when I'm not empty
so that I can be so happy I'm as nice as can be.

I want to feel.
I want to be so angry that I can cut myself
without needing to make up a reason
for just wanting to see myself become a ****** mess.

I want to feel.
I want to feel so much terror
at seeing myself again
that I keep fighting until Monday,
and the next,
and the next,
until I can't keep living.

The soles of my feet,
raw.
Mile after mile, i run
To clear my mind, but deep down it’s to see how far away I’m able to get from this version of myself

My spine,
bruised.
Sticking out like thorns in a garden, piercing the skin
Every sit up brings me closer to pain.

Fingers and toes,
cold and brittle.
The blood does not flow fast enough anymore to keep me warm.
Once iron filled, now ghostly pale.

But
don’t you dare try to write me off 
as if I am completely broken
when all I am is cracked.

I will learn how to fill the missing pieces,
the parts that slowly dissipated behind closed doors.

Trust me,
I am worth salvaging.

I haven’t weighed myself in weeks. I have this incessant itch inside of me longing to know what numbers I ring up to be. But everyday I hear another gnawing voice say,
“You are not a number, you are a person. A number does not define you. What defines you is your kindness, your efforts, the way you live your life.”

But what happens when the way I’ve been living my life for the past year and a half has been nothing BUT numbers and scales and nutrition labels and dysmorphia. What happens when my efforts have only been reduced to reducing myself? What happens when kindness overflows towards others, but I cannot even look in the mirror and say “I love you.” What happens when you are completely consumed by something that refuses to let you consume?
-Does the tunnel end soon?

sometimes it feels as if it would be easier to quit fighting
to just let her do as she pleases
to just let her tell me that this way is easier
to let her force my body to scream and ignore it under her command
sometimes it feels like it would be easier to whither away
to quit forcing food into me
to just stop fighting her
but i know i will never let her defeat me
throughout all of the difficulty that she has brought into my life
i'm never going to let her take away the good again
she can have her small victories from the past
but i'm not going to give her my future
this fight will last till the end of my days but i'm never going to give up
regardless of how difficult this may be