never witnessing such a tableau;
towering… glowering over it.
he watched it in stupefied horror.
glued there- stuck- frightened and traumatized;
sensing it, his brain yanked himself back.
alone...for goblins are not human.
scary and sly, the truths of childhood.
thinking the things children hate to think.
he had found evil-such a tableau.

"Bulimia nervosa, an eating disorder that involves bingeing on food followed by purging, can cause gum disease, osteoporosis, kidney disease, heart disease, and death. Bulimia affects mostly women and teens." - WebMD.com*

My eyes blurred as I wiped away the remaining evidence from my mouth.
I cried.

It seems that bulimia had taken over my life these past couple of months.
Even my hands shake now.
For some reason, I didn't seem to care that I could give myself cancer with this, that I could die from this.

My headaches have gotten worse, my depression even more intense.
And my poor, sweet mother, willing to believe that I am sick and NOT doing this to myself.

Could I really do this to her?
She now has the duty to care for several children that are not hers because she cares too much.
She tries, but she no longer listens to her own children.

My mother is broken.
Revealing this to her will only break her more.

So I'll keep quiet.
Purging and ridding myself of my shame and self respect.
What could possibly be worse?

I want to beat you to death with a blunt object.

I want to grab one of those high-end fashion mannequins by the ankles and bash your ribcage in.

I want to sharpen fifty pencils, bind them with a rubber band, stick the lead ends in your mouth, and punch the erasers.

I want to strap you to a bed of nails and then strap that bed of nails to the hood of my car so I can watch you suffer as we drive over speed bumps in a mall parking lot during an earthquake.

I want to burn your dog in front of you, mix his ashes with gunpowder, melt his bone-shaped name tag into a small metal ball, load it all into a musket, and shoot you in the face with him.

I want you to somehow survive a terrible car crash and then somehow not survive a small fender ****** on the way back from the hospital.

if I should sleep with a lady called death
get another man with firmer lips
to take your new mouth in his teeth
(hips pumping pleasure into hips).

Seeing how the limp huddling string
of your smile over his body squirms
kissingly, I will bring you  every spring
handfuls of little normal worms.

Dress deftly your flesh in stupid stuffs,
phrase the immense weapon of your hair.
Understanding why his eye laughs,
I will bring you every year

something which is worth the whole,
an inch of nothing for your soul.

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.