Don’t stand for too long Or even wiggle Because that's exercise And exercising is a behavior Unless it’s time for the daily walk; Then you must go Even if it hurts and you feel like a dog On an invisible leash. Never spend too much time alone In a room away from the people you barely know With whom you are stuck all day and night and Forced to share toilets and Puked-in shower drains and Cramped kitchen counters and Painful secrets you wouldn’t even tell your mother. Precious heartbeats spent alone Are called isolating and they are bad.
A smear of avocado hastily forgotten on a butter knife Raises suspicion and a quarter teaspoon more must be replaced. But heaven help you If you pour a milliliter too much orange juice. This is disordered behavior And the few offending drops must be poured out. Time will teach you That wholesome rosy-faced girls much younger than you are Holding clipboards with your life on them Will treat you like a child And disregard your hard-earned quarter-century As a fish disregards an airplane. Black tea past three o’clock is criminal; It must be eschewed Lest the minuscule amount of caffeine Affect your sleep eight hours before bedtime And override the Seroquel and the Ambien and the lithium.
And don’t you ever shut the door or flush the toilet ‘Til they’ve come in To ogle your **** and **** And when you’ve finally proven yourself trustworthy enough To shut the door and flush Never stay in for more than three minutes, Even when taking a dump. You will be suspected of purging And you will be grilled like that eggplant you didn’t taste Until you beg them to take your blood and say Please please check the electrolytes and the pH And I will even *** in a cup! I don’t care! I just need you to know I’m telling the truth. And never say you feel sick to your stomach Especially when it’s true. That’s just an excuse people like us use When we want to yodel to God On the big white telephone.
Thirty seconds stolen in your room To brush unruly hair is forbidden Unless your waist-length hair Is nearing dreadlock status Because you might be Up To Something in there. You can say **** but not fat Unless you are justifying a tablespoon Of Catalina dressing To the Food Police. You can’t have a hand mirror because You might smash it and hurt yourself But you will be surrounded With lovely, breakable little picture frames Full of inspirational quotes.
If you’re upset at dinner It’s called anxiety. If your heart hurts and skips beats From years of puking your guts up every day, It’s called anxiety. If you need your space It’s called anxiety. If you can’t meditate And you get so bored that You let a juicy pregnant wolf spider crawl Over your hand and arm seventeen times And instead of OM SHANTI OM your inward chant Is I Am The Walrus It’s anxiety. If you tell them you’re not anxious It’s anxiety.
You can’t have your wallet And your phone at the same time So you’re less likely to run away But they never check to see Where your debit card and ID went off to When you trade in your wallet for your phone. They never notice the triumphant curve on your lips Nor the slight stiff rectangle In the breast pocket of the flannel shirt That is perpetually around your waist. You will keep these with you All day and all night In case someone drives the final corkscrew Into your ear and you must vamoose Before you find yourself Floating white-knuckled in a deluge of blood Grasping a cheese grater Surrounded by seeping lumps of people meat.
But this house models the real world. You are sick and you have no idea What’s best for you. After three weeks they know Exactly how you work And if you don’t agree with that You are wrong. You will relapse one day. If you don’t agree with that, You’re wrong and you will die Because you can never quit cold turkey with food.
You must learn to enjoy the food That you fight and claw and scramble to make, To enjoy each perfectly metered tablespoon Of peanut butter, To delight in hastily and stressfully prepared dishes Upon which you are terrified to put condiments For fear of being told the selection is inappropriate, To relish weak iced tea with no ice because Someone took it all and never filled the tray, Sparingly seasoned with two Splendas, Carefully handed out and locked away by the keyholders, Never sweet enough, Never ever sweet enough, The real sugar of real life replaced by Bitter ******* brandied with the saccharine syrup of so-called safety.
A bitter ode to my time in residential treatment for my eating disorder.