By Nabs

07.00 AM :
I rubbed my eyes, blearily heading to the bathroom. Nightmare haunting my steps, as if it doesn't want to let me go.

Waking up was less dreadful than getting ready.

07.03 AM :
Turning the water knobs, was like an exorcism.
More aware, more awake, yet the blankness was still there. I wonder If today's the day.

The shower was cold as always.

I went out to fetch the towel, I never once looked at the mirror.

9.30 AM :
The first period was literature.
We're learning about the classic fairy tales. The teacher asked us for questions.

' Why does stories only tell about the fairest of them all?"

I managed to seal the questions back to where in belong.

9.55 AM :
The girl next to me received a crumpled paper ball.
She's very kind, and have the sweetest dimples.
As she reads, I can see her self esteem crumpling up, not unlike a paper ball.
I hugged her.
She asked, with hollowed voice, If I wanted to know what was written on it.

I shook my head, I already know what it is.
It's the same word, that still echoes in my world.

'FAT ***', was written on the paper.

12.30 PM :
Lunch was always a tiring affair.
Noisy chatters and baleful glare.
Distaste at how the line seems to never end.
Counting calories to pass the time.

Glancing at my wrist, deciding what food to eat based on the way my hands circle my wrist.

12. 34 PM :
Navigating cafeteria was even worse.
It's like avoiding the poisonous full course, that an assassin serve at you.
Bullying as a side dish, teenage drama as the main course, illusion of escape as the dessert.
The hustle and bustle of school life.

You are bound to accidentally consume that poisonous ****.

12.45 PM :
After I finished eating mashed potato and green beans, some hyenas approached me.
They clawed pleasantries and congratulated me.

"What for?"

"You are thin now! That's like so awesome! "

"But--"

"Also a friendly advice, I'd watch out for that mashed potatoes! Thinking about all that calories make me shudder!"

They walked away with a bounce on their feet, and howls so loud that all the others are staring at them curiously.
I am left bleeding out and nauseous at the encounter.

I clutched my stomach, feeling claustrophobic.

Desperately, trying to banish the thought of emptying my self.

12.59 PM :
The sound of flushing, hits my ear.
Shame crashed against me with doubled force.

I heave again. Body trembling.

The bell rang.

14.00 PM :
It's the last period for the day.
It was health class, and the teacher are telling us about the importance of food. That denying your self sustenance was equal to slowly killing yourself.
He looked at me, I pretend to not see.

Last week, a senior died of anorexia.
His body was too used of rejecting food that he couldn't accept their proposal again.
His stomach balked at the thought of getting back again.
He said goodbye to the world after 7 days of divorce.
The funeral was a messy affair.

I knew him.

15.00 PM :
I opened my locker,
Head spinning from all the people that approached me today.

They were people I barely know.
Congratulating me on losing my weight. Said I was prettier. Said I look good like this. Said I should keep being this way.
Asking me, what's the secret?

They all asked with a saccharine sweet smile on their face, as if it is a good thing.

As if being sick, is a success.

I wonder if they will still call me pretty when they see the bite marks on my knuckle.

15.20 PM :
On the way home I saw a burger joint,
my stomach was clawing for food but my mouth tasted like acid.

I wonder if drinking water will be enough to quench my hunger.

15.25 PM :
I passed a water puddle.

I saw a gaunt faced girl, with a pale complexion.
Her used to be lush hair turned lanky.
Her lips were literred with cuts and bite marks,  her eyes had faint purplish circle.
She looks so different from the person I used to know.

I continued my walk, trying to ignore the emptiness that had stayed in my bones.

16.30 PM :
My mother went into my room, when I was lying in my bed, counting my ribcage.
She looked at me, and a pained look crossed her face. I can see that she's holding back her tears.

She hugged me gently, as if afraid I will crumble with a touch.

I wanted to say that I wont turn into a wraith and vanish like my aunt, but I'm afraid it would be a lie.

"I'm getting better mom. Look here! I got more meat!," I said to my mom, hoping she believe the lie.

I know I'm turning fainter by the day.

She hugged me tighter, brushing my falling hair.

16.53 PM :
My mother left me her baked cookies, I nibbled on it. Wanting to stop being so starving. Ignoring the way my stomach want me to retch it.

I took another bite and count it as a success.

21.00 PM :
I stood in front of the mirror, that I had been avoiding for months, hoping to finally see my reflection.
Instead what I see was all the calories that I needed to burn,
The flaws that my body have,
And plans about not eating tomorrow.

I wonder if It's better to burn my self to ashes.

22.00 PM :
I went down stairs to grab some water.
I heard my mother crying to my father.
Said she's afraid I would vanish away from her.
Said she don't think she can take it any more.

Said she felt like she was cracking every time she sees me.

There were red gashes on her arm.

I swallowed the bile threatening to come out, ignoring how cold I feel despite the heaters on.

22.05 PM :
I smashed the mirror with my knuckle.
Rage and hopelessness was coursing my whole body. I let the tears and everything out.
The pain was sharp, and shards of glass were graced with my blood.

At that moment I saw my old self flashing in front of my eyes. So I kept punching the mirror until it is completely splintered. Shards of it was falling to the floor.

Satisfaction was addicting.

22.45 PM :
I went to sleep with gauze wrapped, still slightly bleeding, fist.
Blanket securely covering me, hoping the nightmares will not come today.

They did come, but they were nuzzling me.

07.00 AM :
I rubbed my eyes, blearily heading to the bathroom. My fist throbbed.

On the fractured mirror was written,

OUT OF ORDER:
This mirror is distorted by socially constructed
ideas of beauty.

Get a new one.

(P.S: You look fine as always)

Friday, 1211h
A man collapses at lunch
and his vitals spin away like
marbles: pulse, breath, pallor
rolling about on the floor
out of reach of the heroes who
shout his name, flash their pagers
like the batman symbol.
Someone get a doctor in here, now.
The old Vets shuffle out of the room
comment blearily on the poor guy
I guess after the War things do not phase you the same
but perhaps they didn't notice the hue of his lips.
And then he stabilizes, and I fall apart
aghast, aback, there is still tuna sandwich in my mouth
ground by my teeth into a diamond to monument the recovery.
The gurney rolls by, I know him.
My stomach falls to Ground Floor
in relief and despair.

That's the thing about long term care
these men are clever, they teach you so well how to live
that you forget they're supposed to die.

I forgot to close the curtain last night
The bedroom is flooded with brightness
White walls and white sheets and your big t-shirt keeping me warm
It's the perfect sunday morning
The calm breeze pushes beyond the courtain
Enticing summer scents flow past my nose
I wish every morning was a sunday one
I roll onto my side to look at you, the light slowly rousing you to wakefulness
I press my cool cheek to the sleep-warmed skin of your bare back and curl my fingers through your hair
My eyelashes flutter on your smooth skin as I blink the sleep from my eyes
You can feel them, tickling you
Your delicate, kiss swolen, perfect lips curl
The softest of smiles plays across them
The corners of your eyes crinkle
And open,
Blearily, to look into mine
You scoop me into your warm arms and your fingertips are lazy
As they trace patterns down my spine,
Coaxing out my sigh I save specially for you
We breathe
Summer air together
Every mornings like a sunday one with you

Across the blistered gibber plain where flies die in the sand
Through swamps of prickly sago where rotting death is planned,
To stride in windblown tussock hills where wind vanes carved their say
To saunter groves of green tree fern where moa giants did play.
In clearings cut with alkali, tusked elephant would loom
With crevassed hides, Methuselah, once aged in terms of doom.
Whilst high above the rocky crags of ancient mountain high,
The keening screech of kestral soaring up to deep blue sky.

Heavy boots in crusted sand where tiny lizards flee
Amidst the rust red rubble of volcanic rock and scree,
To clamber up the ignimbrite, great Vulcan's steps of stone,
Encrusted with thick epiphyte in lichen's mossy home.
Up into the altitude where dark cloud clusters here
And the threat of rolling thunder indicates that rain is near,
Torrential in it's downpour with sudden squall of gale
Surmounted, all quite suddenly, with a blinding blast of hail.

Staggering to shelter in a tiny alpine hut
To find hot coffee on the woodstove and a curvy, hot young ****,
To find us frollicking together beneath a patterned patchwork quilt
Was quite beyond my imagination's comprehensions built?
And afterwards in slumber through the curtains of our room
I watched, in fascination, at a hanging, frozen moon
And wondered, in amazement, at the doings of the day
And speculated, sleepily, where tomorrow's prospects lay.

Blearily I stretch out from the covers, nicely warm
To nullify persistence of that alarm's intruding horn,
Yawning into morning I remove myself from bed
With panicked realisation....all dreams evacuate my head.
Vanished are the alpine hut, the dolly bird, the caves
The crash of rolling thunder and the plunge of mighty waves,
Gone are those phantoms which dwelt inside my mind
Devestatingly dismissed until re-dreamed another time.

M.
Pukehana Paradise
13 December 2014

On the morning of the end, they wove the nooses of rough cord.
Daylight broke cold, the sun did not warm the Earth.

The sky was grey, the sun was dim.
The hoarse whispers of Latin drifted across the barren court yard.
Lined in stone, but for the creaking of the wooden gallows.

The sullen crowd gathers, heavy in their silence.
As they pull the bag from my head, I look blearily for you.
They shove me up the steep steps, I stumble.
The executioner tightens the noose around my neck.

My hands are bound behind me, there's no fighting death.
His grubby hand briefly grabs my face,
He whispers cruel words, intent for them to be the last I shall hear.
The lever is pulled and floor drops away, my last words I whisper,
Come to the gallows, my dear.

**Crack.

Yawns chase each other
dancing slow dreamy steps
My mind wandered off
an hour ago
chasing after distraction
with a flash of whirling colors
like an iridescent hurricane.

My voice remembers some notes
of last night's laughter
My tongue blearily waking up,
savoring the feel of wine and smoke
Hair wondrously disheveled
Eyes with a tint of night's mantle
Lips languorous
throbs and silences
the steady pulsating beat of red

beckons me
to feel
morning gold on my skin.

I stick my tongue out
eager to take the sun in my mouth
intermingling with the smells of night on my clothes

Contentment is in the details.

The bitterness of knowing
You do not deserve sadness,
As though pain were a prize
You have not earned, and yet
The knife in your heart, and life
Pouring from your eyes to this page
Beg to differ,
But with a world that has earned sadness
And I, who has just stumbled blearily
across it, like a feast for my hungry soul,
Stay bitterly and undeserving,
Guilty for tears
Without reason or right; a smile
Is the simplest lie, but cloying
When you have no right to be hurt
It is unbearable, that smile
That rests on my unbearable lips

"Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too."

I stood, fingertips blearily holding on
keeping that hopeful noose around my neck
just a little too loose...

Clench, intensity in the intestines
guts in knots, over a rainbow bridge the pale unicorn trots
reins in the hand of a sandalled wanderer, the prism of life;
the meaning behind light fades, Relief the Grim Savior waves
under the pressure, tightening, interdimensional rift a fist grips the heartstrings
playing this improv solo, it's so frightening, blink without looking
that chemical smell, all too familiar, it's like home cooking
on the brink, don't shake, let it play out, steady now
strumming arterial chords, lungs starting to quake
it's the chorus line coming in to the arhythm of panic
a scope lifted away, laid down and changed that quick
what's gone is yesterday, in those seconds of eternity
a baptism of anxiety, regret rushes the stage, the vocalist comes in
"Oh dear God in Heaven they're burning me!"
with a discordant pluck everything could go amuck, awry, lending permanence to this guest
that crept in, adrenaline, second guessing at a time like this? Even some soldiers are made of tin
even holy men commit atrocities of sin, even in the dictionary it's just a word no matter how it looks: perfection
in that murky limbo, where the mind transcends and the soul will go, there's no bar
no high road, but somehow always feeling watched, always know, in another multiverse entirely, but never an inch too far
completely stunned, Death holding the reins as it guides this past life over the rainbow
that forms beneath its feet where it walks across the cosmos, black robes, white bones, Christlike in presence
when the time comes, there's no sadism in the streak, the reaping of the dream, realizing the surrounding
it's beauty resounding, the way love would feel if it could walk in pure merciful empathy, silently among us
the force that is antithetical is equally beautiful to its opposite, in every way, it gives meaning to seeing to never knowing what the last sight could be
without a sickle or a scythe, only a hand to hold as we walked and talked about what was on the other side of visible light
the sky fell back into place, focused and faced the North Star that blunk back slowly, blearily into a blurry existence
a dog rose arisen with unburdened eyes,
a snake shed a skin of lies, a wanderer collapsed in the future road of why's
this is a step toward change, now that it's real everything feels strange
which comes as no surprise.