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.

i giggle at a friend's joke
and wave goodbye to them.
i walk by the streets, kicking rocks
and thinking of dumb old things.

i open the door to the house,
and i am almost used to the sharp, berating voices inside.

i shut them out,
and lay exhausted on my bed.

putting an arm over my eyes,
i rest.

and wake up to them,
looking at me with horrified eyes.
my room is a mess--
a beheaded stuffed bear,
broken ceramics,
crushed scissors,
a butcher knife in my hand,
and warm, crimson fluid streaming down my arm.

what happened, i wonder?

"I'm so OCD"
OCD isn't a joke.
Washing your hands over and over again until your skin is raw isn't a joke.
Doing things that your brain tells you to do, regardless of what, isn't funny.
Not having control is not a joke.

"You look so anorexic."
Eating disorders are not a joke.
Refusing to eat until it kills you isn't a joke.
Throwing up over and over again to get a body that you will never be happy with isn't funny.
Being control by the one thing that makes you feel like you have control isn't a joke.

"That made me so depressed."
Chemical imbalances in the brain isn't a joke.
Wanting to do nothing all the time isn't funny.
Wanting to die all the time isn't a joke.

Stop making jokes about things you don't understand.

And if you are dealing with any eating or mental disorder, I am so proud of you for still being here and staying strong. I know how hard recovery is. You will overcome it.

My entire life has felt like suffocating. The idea of standing in front of people has only caused mental breakdowns and tears.
Suffocating- Something I've began to find comforting. When asphyxia sinks in, closing myself off, and escaping is the only thing that makes it okay.
Screaming, kicking and self inflicted bruises. I want to be numb, but drugs is not an option, and the idea of drowning my sorrows in alcohol terrifies me.
It is times like these when I need someone most. When there is something I can't control, words become harder to find. When everyone seems to take a little longer to talk to me, mentally I begin to drown.
A daily battle found within the screaming confines of my mind.; A pressing weight pounding against my lungs, causing my massive inability to breath.
I am about to explode, Like a ticking time bomb of discomfort and suppressed adrenaline.

Don't tell me there's no hell              
I've felt its heat on my neck    
The tongue of a long lost lover
Her immortal delight is to impart the dystopic truths she's learnt of the world
She told me that my blood tasted of citrus fruits
and iron
and rain
She whispered that everyone had their own flavour of pain
So why resist my dear, drink up
find your poison and drown in it
You don't need to hide it from me
I want my flames to caress your skin
I want to see you burn
It's an intimate little sin
but don't worry sweetness
Soon I'll help you pass that sin
Watch the flames spread from person
to person
to person
Then you won't have to hide it at all  Everyone will be in your own personal hell  
Then you'll know that the flames you've felt at your neck all this time weren't the promise of some place deep underground
It's a cage
Constructed with great pain
Occupying your cranium

'Look at me'*
She spat at the mirror.
'What's wrong with you?'
'Everything is wrong.'
She stares at herself and wrinkles her nose in disgust.
'My hair is limp, my eyes look dead, I'm gaining wrinkles and I'm getting fatter.'
She sighed and frowned hard at herself.
'You're very ******* yourself don't you think? You have positive qualities inside and out.'
She stared into her own eyes with a venomous glare.
'No. I don't. I'm unpredictable and unpleasant and...'
'And...?'*
Her eyes welled up.
'Different.'
'You have a mental illness... You cannot help that.'
Her face turned from the mirror wanting to smash the image of her face into a million pieces.
'At least if I were beautiful on the outside it'd be different to how I feel inside.'
'Well how do you feel inside?'
'Misunderstood, abnormal, confused, different and ugly, very very ugly. I wish it were as easy to fix a personality disorder as it is to fix a blemish.'
She avoids her reflection as she leaves the bathroom and continues on with her day.

don't you ******* get it?!
we could have done it
we were so close

so in love

you ******* left me
YOU ******* LEFT

yet you were there all along

we could try it all again
but there is no ******* way

because the thought of touching you
reminds me of so much saddness

that i would ******* **** myself
if i ever felt that way again

we almost ******* made it
almost ******* made it

the most heartbreaking thing of all is that I watched myself fall apart

I looked in the mirror and slowly didn't recognize this sad girl
and I couldn't find myself
the monsters in my head kidnapped me
I wanted you to save me
so bad

but I felt you forgetting me
forgetting us
so I stayed kidnapped
and slept

you got mad
because I needed to get out of bed
but when I say "I can't" why don't you understand the cry for help

even though the pain is in my head
doesn't mean it isn't real to me

so when I see you smiling and singing
when I always wanted you to sing to me

but by the time I would wake up from the late night of fighting demons
you had already left
your body remained
so you thought with it

I felt like a *****
my boyfriend had his fingers in me and around my neck
while I held my head in my hands pleading for the bad thoughts to go away
you would hit your head too if it felt like it was poisoning your life

you made me feel like I was crazy
and I think I might be

that's what I'm so afraid of
because the monsters that kidnapped me

were me

I dreamt I looked in the mirror
I could see my backbones & I was so
happy
but a kind of sad happiness
because there's no true happiness
inside my
bare bones
but I felt alive
when I was actually
dying
and I feel like I could jump to the stars
and glow in the dark
but I couldn't barely crawl on my knees
I am so weak
Oh I'm so sorry
i can see those bones again
but now they're buried
six feet under
my skin
but they want to crawl back
with me
and I can't say no to them
I can't say no to myself
I can't say no
to these urges
in order to be able
to see what's underneath
my skin
I'm so sorry
I'm really sorry
but I can't say no
not yet.