#bingeeating
In a bedroom in small-town Pennsylvania,
you’ll find an unmade bed,
a pile of clothes on the floor—
clean but not folded,
open drawers and dusty shelves,
a desk in the corner of the room
with pictures laid across it.
When I caught my first fish at six.
I held it at arm’s length by the fishing line
to avoid the slimy scales,
a frown on my face from being forced
to sit silently in the cold.
When my family went to Marco Island,
my sister and I, sifting sand for the best seashells
in our matching swimsuits and hats.
Mom and dad’s fights forgotten in our fun.
High school graduation
posing with my best friend since first grade,
diplomas in one hand and an extra cap held between us
because not everyone survived all four years.
Move-in day at college,
sitting on my raised bed with a grey comforter
and two decorative pillows the color of cotton candy.
Sweat on my brow from southern humidity
and moving furniture without the help of a father.
The pictures are merely snapshots
that lack the full story.
How I learned what it meant for love to fall apart
when I was eight years old.
My sister warned me before it happened,
told me what a divorce was.
I mistook her for joking until they called us upstairs.
Dad cried when they told us, but mom held her tears
until the day he left. The sounds of her cries
escaping from behind a closed door.
“This doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”
But that’s exactly what it meant.
How I was taught by my father that love is conditional,
and I repeatedly needed to prove myself
through good grades and unquestioning obedience.
Forced to stay home to spend time with the family,
sitting wordlessly on the couch while he watched TV.
Made guilty for wanting to spend time with friends
because that somehow meant that I was a bad daughter.
It’s funny—I never asked myself if he was a good father.
If you look harder at the bedroom,
you’ll find journals filled with bitter words,
screws from disassembled pencil sharpeners, loose razors, and Aquaphor,
food wrappers stuffed in hidden places,
a closet brimming with junk and pairs of shoes,
evidence of a story untold. Until you.
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 at 9:09 PM UTC
I’ve taken the monster out of the cage today.
I suppose it was bound to happen at some point.
This is what happens when you tempt a beast in hiding.
Like my father’s sobriety, I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Apr 17, 2021
Apr 17, 2021 at 11:44 PM UTC
there’s this thirst inside of me,
a monster who enrages my insides and tears me apart
once you feed the monster, there’s no stopping me.
I binge.
And after comes the guilt and the shame and there’s no self-control.
the monster inside me was right, so I got up, and flushed almost everything inside me down the rabbit hole.
I knew I shouldn't have done that, but it was better to get rid of the guilt physically than let it rot inside my body more than it already was.
Apr 17, 2021
Apr 17, 2021 at 11:39 PM UTC
Can’t feel anything
They drug me so I don’t cut
So I don’t **** myself
Won’t let me drink
Can’t get high
Can’t even **** myself
So instead
I ate... and ate...
Til my stomach hurt
Forcing it down
Feel the carbs increase my heart rate
Tiny bursts of mild pleasure
Turning into gluttonous lethargy
I guess I felt something
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 9:29 PM UTC
My skin is splitting at the seams like a poorly made children’s sweater,
being worn by a planet so big
that it becomes its own universe
Jul 8, 2019
Jul 8, 2019 at 2:18 PM UTC
Saline streams ran down my cheeks and found it's way to my lips
Glitter and shine like sequins as they drip down the terrain,
Seeping into the cracks in a desperate attempt to drink the life I've given up
I'm older now but nothing has changed
My wine still tastes like bitter childhood and my cigarettes smelled like my father
(Or maybe my father smelt like cigarettes, I couldn't tell)
A bag of anger packaged in Mcdonald's chicken nuggets sat on my work desk like a trophy to behold
I was only 6 when the first crack in my heart ran through
My mother told me that maybe copious amounts of cheesy fries and roasted chicken would somehow motivate my body to fill it up
I needed reassurance that would coat it in resin
Give it another layer of protection
But she gave me a bag of hard candy so I could sculpt around it
My body shook and my voice cracked as my father left my the family for the 3rd time and I knew my trust was gone forever
But that's fine because 7-Eleven is down the streets
And they have a promo for chocolate-vanilla ice cream
All I needed was a cone to catch the tears as I swallowed it down like melted sugar syrup
I tell myself that adding chocolate chips into my depression would not make it taste sweeter
But when I took a bite out of that cookie, I could barely tell I've been crying
And a few mugs of mocha drowned the thought deep into my mind
I'm older now
But my taste buds still have me tied up on a chain
And it feels like the only way to escape
Is to jump down the abyss
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
"Sweetheart, You lose so much weight"
"I'm fine mom, I've already ate"
Sedative words that can't extricate
Food, Is what I begun to hate.
Thin, Thin, Very Thin
Left with bones and waxen skin.
I'm famished but anxious of the kilos
Furtively eating with my eyes, Day by day this is how it goes.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, can't you see?
What you show is demising me.
Every calorie is a conflagration
Stepping into the scale a redundant vexation.
Stand upon my reflection again
A fat *** is what I see, vociferating of my brain
makes me regurgitate in so much pain.
Drops of anesthetic mainlining my soul
numbers in the scale are reigning without control.
Flesh into ebbing, turning acrimony into cuts
throwing meals, when everyone shuts
All is left is my aweary bones
Still it whispers
"Not thin enough"
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
It wasn't even good anymore
It was just a
HABIT
To fill the empty
VOID.
A glue that I mistakingly
thought would
hold all of my
BROKEN
pieces together.
This pain inside of me is
DEEP
and
UNRELENTING
Burning with endless
REGRET.
This is what I feel
24
hours
a
day.
Everything is an
ACT.
Every positive thought
I must
PUSH
through my brain
as if
lifting
a
HOUSE.
This has been my struggle
All day long,
EVERYDAY
for
21 years.
Fighting and slaying and eventually saying
"I give! I give!"
to my
RELENTLESS
Dragons.
By nightfall I am
EXHAUSTED.
Dreading the continuous
BATTLE
of tomorrow, the next day, the next, the next....
It's an endless merry-go-round of
GROUNDHOG DAY.
The same battle
The same
DEFEAT
most everyday.
How to escape?
The therapist told me (21 years ago)
She saw women's lives
RUINED
and
LOST
and turned
UPSIDE DOWN
and
INSIDE OUT
over the endless years they've been
SURVIVING
this
DISORDER.
And I thought mine was just a phase.....
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 2:31 PM UTC