You know why I'm obsessed with makeup?
You know why I literally BREAK. DOWN. when I see myself in the mirror on one of those REALLY ugly days that I have?
You know why I seem f!cking vain and beauty obsessed and attention seeking because of how self-deprecating I am?
You know why I am currently crying...alone...on my bedroom floor...kind of pathetically?

Because now I'm a little bit scared
That maybe I DO have a disease of the mind
Maybe I DO have something in my head that isn't right
It just seems so impossible
Because I mean
I look in the mirror
And all I see is this hideous shameful beastly girl
So ugly
In fact, I genuinely feel terrible for the people who have to look at me
and I don't know why
I just don't see how anybody could ever possibly think that I am pretty
And for some reasons I'm crying right now
And I feel really alone
But no no no
There is no way I really have dysmorphia
Is there?

I feel embarrassed
Like I come across shallow
And stupid
And makeup obsessed
Because I can't ever see myself as pretty
NOT EVEN ONCE
not even decent
Not even reasonable
I just. see. UGLY.
and ashamed of my face,
And ashamed of my obsession
With cosmetics
Because it is like the only medicine they made
To fix this affliction
Makeup can make up for how ugly I am
maybe it can fix me
maybe I won't hate myself anymore
but it never does
and I hate crying alone!

Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror
And although I tried to take the advice given to me by my therapist
I was unable to find a single thing I might even just tolerate about myself.
Instead, my mind and heart raced each other, trying to see who would win the prize of defeating me
as I scan my naked body for each and every inconsistency and insufficiency.

You see my first memory of self hatred comes from a place most people could not predict.
Imagine me at six years old standing in the shower, so proud of myself
For finally graduating from the bathtub I had associated with childhood.
I had just finished reading “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein.
And out of the more than 400 poems by this poet one stuck to my brain
Like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth after eating a PB&J.

Now if you’ll forgive me for getting off track for just this moment
I’d like to read you this poem entitled “Scale.”

“If I could only see the scale,
I’m sure that it would state
That I’ve lost ounces...maybe pounds
Or even tons of weight.
‘You’d better eat some pancakes-
You’re skinny as a rail.’
I’m sure that’s what the scale would say…
If only I could see the scale.”

If you’ve ever read a poem by Shel Silverstein you’d know that each of them
Are accompanied by an illustration.
This particular poem is positioned next to a drawing of a person standing on a scale
Unable to see the number because their stomach juts out just far enough
To block their view of the information that scale is providing.
I remember looking down at my naked body
Only to realize that i also could not see my feet.
My childish, growing, prepubescent tummy obstructed my view of my toes.
And I remember thinking for the first time, “Wow, I am fat.”
And that same feeling has followed me throughout these subsequent years.
Throughout elementary, middle, high school and beyond.
My dysmorphic perspective has been a shadow of which I could not shake.
And try as I might, deep down I knew that this was my fate.

I started restricting what I ate starting in 6th grade.
-I counted calories lost and gained and measured my size by the tightness of a tank top.
I watched videos of people like Eugenia Cooney,
and inspired myself through the photos I saw of
Emaciated girls kept alive by feeding tubes.
I was 12.
-I was diagnosed with Ee Dee En Oh Ess in the summer of seventh grade.
EDNOS is a catch-all eating disorder characterized by the characteristics you lacked
To be able to gain the coveted name brand DSM-5 diagnosis of anorexia.
-This I considered to be my failure.
To not qualify because of a lack of being underweight was all I needed for motivation.
So I doubled down on my efforts to lose weight and by the age of fourteen
I had finally achieved that which I so...craved.
I was the best. The skinniest. The one people whispered about in the halls and I had all the attention I could ever dream of getting.
And I was happy.
Wasn’t I?

Skip ahead to now and you will know my comeback story.
Seven years of weekly therapy, numerous psych ward stays, and one near-death experience
I can finally say that I am at a stable and healthy weight.
I continue to despise my body, but now I have the tools and mechanisms to be able to fight off the demon I had nicknamed “Ana”.
-And while I still cannot say that I truly love myself the way I am,
Slowly and steadily I continue to improve.
And I hope that one day I can look into that mirror, take in all my flaws and still be able to tell little 6 year old Grace…
“Sweet girl, you will be okay”.

Wake up  
Look in mirror
                      fat
Take off clothes
Look in mirror
                      why is my stomach so swollen looking??
                      ******* hate this body
                      especially my stomach
Weigh  
                      102.3
                ­      finally
Breakfast  
Strawberries
                      ­10 calories
Coffee and cream
                      34 calories..
                      too many
                      need energy, though
                      fine.
strawberries+coffee+cream=­ 44 calories
Weigh
                      102.6
                  ­    **** it
*****
Weigh
                      102.4
                 ­     better
Go for run
                      burned 400 calories
Hungry
                      can't eat
Look in mirror
                      the way my fat sticks out is disgusting
Weigh
                      102.4
100 sit ups
                      burned 50 calories
200 jumping jacks
                      burned 70 calories
Look in mirror
                      why am I not thin yet
                      don't fade out again
Passes out
Go to doctor
Says too thin
                      don't lie to me
Dinner
Peach
                      36 calories
Energy drink
                      210 calories
                      ugh
                      ne­ed it desperately though
strawberries+coffee+cream+peach+energy drink= 290
Weigh
                      103.1
                      ­hate myself
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Examine body
*****
Weigh
                      102.1
200 sit ups
                      burned 100 calories
Get dumped by boyfriend
                      it's probably because I'm fat
Take shower
Get out
Look in mirror
                      you are disgusting
Go to bed
                      I hate myself


REALITY
scary thin
ate too little, exercised too much
unrealistically saw herself
died two years later of a self inflicted gunshot to the head and a starved soul
**note said: “I love you, but I hate myself and the fact I'll never be small enough for you”

The rabble simmered to a distant dull din
muffled by thick wooden doors and hands clamped over ears.
Wanting deafness rather than to hear again
the laughter accompanied by his name spoken ugly as sin.
But who can mute memories or what screams from within?

Wilting for another night
wishing a dream would birth
enough light,
praying
to believe he could face the world
head held high,
no stoop to stop confidence
nor twist of frown to drown positive assurances.
just enough would be enough for him
if he could walk the way
the beautiful do.
Just the way they do.

Dysmorphic

Whenever I see the word “noon”
I sit and I stare at it.
Logically, I know that it’s spelt right,
But the perfect palindromous parallel
Just looks wrong.

Sometimes in band, I hear a sound
And it’s just not right.
Logically, I know that it’s fine,
But the slight tremor torturing the technique
Just sounds wrong.

Sometimes I see myself in the mirror
And I don’t recognize me.
Logically, I know the body I see is me,
But the soul inside is suffocatingly stifled,
And I feel wrong.

Gloria, latex snap. Opaque lipstick.
I should press holiday stamps
over those big blue eyes of yours.
Misspelled spoken word, whole hunting
from malignant orange ,
crosshairs and et cetera.

*** on me - stellar hardwood floor ;
the last unicorn was a battered woman
with certain dysmorphic symptoms.
My boyfriend thinks it's **** when
i read the dsm v the way i eat jello shots.

Still, I don't **** him how I would the
surrealish ***** in a polyester uniform.
He knows there's been a cowboy in a parka on the corner for days
politely asking about the three legged race. I have no answers for him
or his handsome eagle co-defendant.

I really think
I'll marry my best friend for her
enameled heart and health insurance.
I took my multivitamin , tapping out
morse on old formica ,
while telling my dead dog im sorry for
letting them **** him.

There's a part of me,
that you have never seen,
it's large, burrowing, dysmorphic
and it tells
me that this is okay,
this is natural,
that the cold rush I feel
is the thermometer saying I'm cooling down
and that love that kept boomeranging
won't be able to reach me
because that part of me
is digging deep for the both of us.

And so,
stuck inside that soggy center
it burrows for fun and survival,
because it knows it can go as deep as it wants,
and no one will ever see it.

Sitting, restless

In this changeling

Sensation

Of freshness and renewal.

Running

Rat on a wheel.

Each passing day

A different way

Of feeling,

An altered state of mind.

Seeking

To find

A man within the boy.

Hoping to see

The real me.

Alive and kicking.

Hot flushed, this post determined puberty

And the desperate need to feel.

An urgent angst to Be.

Short fuse and temper flare.

I’m not really there

Yet still somehow

Everywhere and

Everything;

Else breathing.

Dysmorphic chest

Heaving

Exigency

In this

Juncture

Soul puncture,

And bloodied bandaids

Cast off

My heart

Once worn on my sleeve.

I am finger skin,

Flesh and nail

Torn

And jagged edges

Peeling.

Perplexity kneeling,

I am deeply lost inside of me.

Begging to be found.

Compund; unbound.

They say that beggars can’t be choosers

Only losers left to dreaming.

They also say

That I may be a dreamer

But I’m not the only one.

I will come undone in this undoing.

Eschewing

A life lived unalive.

Slow unravel

To once again

Begin

To belong in this

Skin

Stitched bleeding riches

To my bare and brittle bone  

He is not alone

I feel him

Running

Waiting

Sating disquietude

With an attitude

Unshackled

He is not running

Rather feet flying

A rat inside

A wheel.

I
Originations of consciousness whir into a moan of torment.
A sudden bombshell of consternation;
    her eyes burst wide.

Baby?
Sleep-laden, post-finals brain gravy:
No, can't be. Could be. Shouldn't be. Want to be? No, can't be.

Lurking beyond the reach of terror, realism slithers closer.
The hysteria deteriorates as deduction brings lucidity.

******* eggs.
They are abolished, and never heard from again.

II
Suitcase tetris, smothering each layer.
She moves without direction,
or a lazy child with ADD.

At long last, the shimmering sink full of death beckons...

Dissatisfaction erupts in a symphony of fragmented drinkware.
Her assumption lingers, cresting into prediction.
Her expectations are met.
A thorn in her paw.
     The dishwater weeps.

III
Her rage is tangible, hissing in her ears,
bashing her skull when it is ignored,
clawing at her spine.
She abandons the silverware.
They never did anything for her.

The loathsome bag swings threateningly.
She ignores it, giving it a silent challenge.

Fate strings before her eyes, yanked taut and thrumming
with inevitability.
Crimson satin sheets tangle lovingly from the rift of tender peel.
Cake-batter-in-a-mixing-bowl splatter,
the dissimilitude of children's laughter.
Wobbling, fawn-like under the density of rage gnawing at her lips,
she retreats, acknowledging her submission.

She begins as a tree, but rapidly degenerates
into grotesque dysmorphic spasms on the cheap veneer.

Hysteria threatens to burst forth, frothing, but no.
This is not my day.

The reflection in the mirror
returns me a sad and forced smile,
the dried-up hair barely catching the light,
and those brown eyes sinking like holes in the ground.

Who could love that face?
With its rough features,
its coarse skin and bent nose.
A pyrrhic beard and that weak chin.

And what about those arms, huh?
Long and thin like church candles,
but with no flare.

Not much of a chest either,
there are gravestones with more bulk,
and people are far happier to see them too.

But above all it’s the barrenness that scares me,
the sinkholes run deep and the candles cold,
and the gravestones go down to the foundations of the world.

The reflection in the mirror returns me.
Nothing

bitten nails, broken skin
i speak volumes through a pen
the unkempt look of a tired teen
emotionally broken writing queen

i write melodies for the youth
the ones who know the ugly truth
and after all is said and done
i speak for the ones who stand alone

i write for the ones who stay in their rooms
who have inner horror of the imminent doom
of facing the decision to live or to die
i speak for the ones who silently cry

i write for the broken primadonnas
who realize all they really wanted
was a beautiful body (thin as a stick)
i write for the sweethearts, lovely, dysmorphic

i write melodies for the hated
the ignored, defeated, self-harming, tormented
the unloved darlings of this generation
oppressed by society’s views of perfection
the unwanted lovechild of sadness and hate
we feel in our hearts that we all are mistakes
i write for every last tired young soul
for i write as i speak
and i speak what i know.

manic episodes
social phobia
PTSD
generalized anxiety disorder
hyperactive ****** desire disorder
bulimia nervosa
body dysmorphic disorder

Thanks doc for the diagnosis

What can be more painful than a raging soul?
A body full of scars
A body drowned in suffering;
Dysmorphic image of a broken soul
So thin ,so close to nothing ,
So broken ,so close to sorrow
In pain, the body lies
The inked image of this broken heart.
Write poems not scars in thy skin,
Scripted history, the body is your friend.

I look at all the boney people.
I look at all the boney people.

Ellanor Twigby
Picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been;
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window,
Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door.
Who is it for?
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?

Jenny McCraigsie
Writing the words of a sermon that thick ones will fear;
Don't have a beer!.
Look at her schlocking,
Selling snake oil to lonely dysmorphic out there.
What does she care?
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?

I look at all the boney people.
I look at all the boney people.

Ellanor Twigby
Died in the church and was buried alone with her name.
Nobody came.
Jenny McCraigsie
Counting her cash with her hands as she walks from her grave.
One less drone slave.
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?

The frustrated poet runs his fingers through his hair,
then strikes the last word of his final verse in despair

Across town, a painter incinerates a wooden facade of a steeple
For the existential artist, hell is truly other people

But the sculptor who whittles his work with a knife
Is solely the one who values his life

For he understands that the process of creation,
Does not rest within pre-calculation

can’t speak about you in words but
in the heaviness of trees on unrelated stones
or all the things I didn’t chew
the worm of history froze silent
no axis mundi in my blood but
dysmorphic dreams
your rancid placenta

I can’t speak while
you spin around on streets smelling of flesh
and the layers of time squeeze all the screams of me

mother: the furthest language

Colonial history will still dictate how the men around here
Practice love through hate
For aesthetic purposes; an ethnic marker,
Gender controlled by husband...son...father
Against my will.

I can let nature take its course, the uneasiness in how I pass
Bears nothing to your immoral force with which you open me up.
Your gateway to a selfish pleasure,
And I once believed that being loved
Was close to being treasured.
I am as trapped as a bird in a cage,
Modified and made ugly by your commission.
Disfigured by tradition and religion and holy wars,
And chained by the fear  that renders me yours
Against my will.

My sisterhood grows from northeast Africa
To the sub-Sahara.
Young and joyless and bound by doctrines.
No pursuit of happiness. No pleasure to come
No great expectations. Nothing foretold
Nothing that has been or gone.
Objects more of control than desire;
My eyes that once shone with innocent love
Now burn with hate fuelled fire…and all because...
You denied me a fall from grace, you denied me self discovery,
No different to putting scars on my face
Or is that too much a public recovery?
You denied me womanhood, you denied me choice.
I censor my thoughts and silence my voice
And I think of our mothers and their mothers
And of the honour and pride they felt
When this exact same fate to them was dealt.
And why did they not feel humiliated? Abused?
Mutilated? Used?
Maybe when we live in a world without light
We relinquish our strengths and fall prey to our plights.
Enlightenment and knowledge, I was lead to believe,
Are the roads to freedom.
Our mothers learned nothing other than to serve and to please,
And here am I, enlightened but sedated,
Imprisoned, captive, segregated.
Dysmorphic now, a victim still,
And all of this against my will.

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2013

i haven't felt pretty recently
i'm constantly trying to find
something different about myself
that i like

it just never seems to appear

The Phobophobia Collection – P is for Phobophobia


I’ve got 99 problems and my woman does not exist… so she ain’t one.
I’ve got 99 problems now my woman is gone.
I used to have one hundred problems
And only one that mattered;
But now the only thing I have got,
Is this feeling of feeling shattered.


I have dreamed of not having insomnia,
For what literally seems like forever.
I truly can’t be happy,
Rain or shine or any weather
And whatever the occasion I am down in the dumps;
Found this manic personality and man it *****!


Oh look; I have met a beautiful woman.
Oh my!  She must be my true love!
She said hello!
Oh she must be the one!

But now she is talking to somebody else,
On her stupid phone…


Thank you life; I really taught myself a lesson,
To never even try to be happy,
I will never have a family,
So I’ll fetch myself some rope
And a broken pen
And a rose for my rose,
To remember me when…


I woke up depressed again…
I did not go to sleep this way.
I had an amazing nightmare last night,
But all memory of it has gone away…


Half way through a conversation,
Or when I pass through a threshold,
I sneeze like I have a cold,
But I am not ill, or so I have been told.
Where are my keys?
What was I talking about?
What the Hell!?
Where was I going?
Did I put the food in the oven?
Or did I leave it out?
Did I lock the door?
I will check once more,
Then I will check it again and again
And again to be sure.


They say I mask my sadness,
With my pathetic attempt at what I call humour;
But I refuse to listen!
And laugh like a mad man,
As they spread their vicious rumours,
About…my precious!


If I had an imaginary friend,
I guess that she would have to be a Princess,
For she could only ever exist, inside my head
And she would eventually leave, because I am so very boring.
I have no desire to speak to men,
Because their conversations only leave me snoring.


Why do you look so les miserables?
I was born this way!
I have apathy to faking smiles;
Get out of my way!
I have to leave this planet,
There are far too many people.
There is a call for you…
I don’t want to speak, I can’t take the trouble.
I foresee a future and it will only be evil,
Asking “How the Devil are you today?”
I sarcastically reply, oh yeah…I am great!  
With no smile on my face
And my dark empty eyes…
How I hate human beings…
Donnie Darko had it right.


Send me a new broken engine,
So I don’t have to speak to them again…
But…I want to be your friend…
Well I want to get to the bitter end…
But I want to be your girlfriend…
Believe me you are all better off if I am dead;
Rather that, than have to deal with me and my lack of empathy.
So much empathy!  
It is killing me!
Hannibal Lector’s got nothing on me…


I guess I had better stop writing this truth,
For I don’t want you to see my ugly face or my mania.
My body’s dysmorphic disorder is no stranger than I am;
But there is one in the mirror.
Who is that arrogant, narcissistic man?
I will self-diagnose…but I will not type into Google ‘Thanks’.


The past is still the present
And I guess I am agnostic when it suits me,
But I want to go Heaven!
I don’t believe a thing
And I am sick to death of my repeated reincarnations.


My entire existence is flat-lining;
So worthless, like everything,
And I feel so tired, like, all of the time
And I can’t even rhyme,
So I repeat the same lies.
So tell me what is the point?
There clearly is no point…


Stop writing this garbage,
Nobody wants to read it.
I don’t even want to have to write it,
But I am enslaved and completely compelled…

I guess in a while,
I will reach the finish…

Oh my God…
What is this fresh Hell?


(C)2018 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve never killed anybody, but
I may as well have
You see, I’ve spent so much time
Hating
So much time tearing others
To shreds that
If every callous comment was a casualty
I’d be the world’s most successful serial killer

Although, I guess it’s not just me
No
It’s every single teenage girl in existence
It’s every inferiority complex
Every dysmorphic body
Every ounce of self-hatred
In the nation
Wrapped into one
Spewing gossip and resentment like Diet Coke-infused lava

I’ve never killed anybody, but
I sure have wounded some people’s pride
Fueled their ego-scalding tears at night
Just to protect me and stop mine
Like somehow that makes it right

I’ve never wanted to be a bully, but
Sometimes
It’s **** or die

My entire adult life spent through selfies adorned with false smiles, vanity portraying the "best version" of myself.
My own body delusions still presented without filter, although masked.
Raw, vulnerable photographs through my weakest moments, tear strings, pink cheeks and red eyes aren't something I've felt comfortable posting.
However posed my photos are, they still aren't altered.
Playing up my own dysmorphic disorder from youth yet grasping my own beauty seen as overly vain.
Early youth Ex boyfriends told me selfies were extremely narcissistic, and made me seem rampant for attention.
But does a girl who has such little following still seek approval of others when they don't like photos?
I'm not sure.
My instagram feed is dull.
It's not uniform or beautifully choreographed.
I often hide photos, as I too enjoy hiding myself from time to time.
I intended on leaving an imprint of all these useless photos I've taken over the last decade. Physically I no longer share similar traits to younger versions of myself, though mentally I've changed overall time and time again. People have called me iron-clad, the strongest person they know.
But am I?
My body embellished with secrets of a personality I used to be too afraid of showing men until this fall.
How many basic accommodations I've missed out on, how my body soaks up the granules of this love.
My being is a season, wise in my own way and mystic in terms of value.  
Windows beaming with warm midday sunlight, and crispy fall mornings.
Evolving rituals, moonglow and warmth. Certain darkness like still plotted night skies. Teetering vulnerability, and overstuffed closet.
Days less spent pining over lost dysfunction, and moreover trying to figure out who I have become.
Perceived destruction of oneself versus proverbial Phoenix reconditioning.  
Warrior ignite.
This winter's met with welcomed warmth though grazed heartache and sadness.

Not about how I look
It’s about how I feel
Don’t aspire to model
Unreal
Abs of steel
Body images forged
In a foundry of fake
Ego-worshipping
Vanities
We venerate,
Escalate
Above normalcy
Mortals’
Informal appearance
To levels demanding
Religious adherence
To some sort of devil’s
Purse-nality cult
Poster-boyish pop stars
Idol minds
We exult
In,
Pretending
This kid’s an adult
Surely only more harm
Than success
Can result
When alarms aren’t raised
On the pageantry stage
Or the image displayed
Still outweighs
The health craze
Gets away with its ****
As if papists appraised
By the standards we set
For what flesh
Really craves
And the souls it enslaves
When the imp
Misbehaves
Just a phase
They say,
Verily,
Soon it shall pass
Blame society’s
Virally-spreading
Impact
With its constant
News-cycle’s
Truth-vanishing
Act
Just reflecting what we
Wish to see
Staring back
In the glass
At us
Perfectly snaptured
As dysmorphic actors’
Dystopian future
Buy-products
Enraptured
Like Thatcherites’
Appetites
Herd-thinning pasture
Refracting attractive
Distractions
Much faster
Than paces of
Heart-racing
Patients
Can gasp for
To ask for
A semblance of
***-figured
Sums
At the least
But alas becomes
Only
This beautiful beast

As September daze will soon arrive
recollections from a
psychologically checkered  past
loom large recalling  
tragic storied days of mein kampf.

Circa early nineteen seventies:
As a mere slip of a shy lad,
(who knew nothing
about powder milk biscuits),
I experienced unfettered amorousness
toward an equally introverted lass
(conjured courtesy my imagination),
though both of us
barely out of our boyhood
and girlhood respectively
unfettered infatuation naturally
found me wedded to Anna Rexia.

Unhealthy relationship between us
left the writer of these words
with ****** dysmorphic  
skeletal elements of harried style,
swiftly tailored over
mine ensuing tweener years,
which pronounced after effect(s)
still linger approximately five decades
after existential crisis indelibly pierced,
scored and tattooed permanent
anatomical and  physiological characteristics
within windmills of my mind
namely delicately impressed psyche
communicated this August 30th, 2022.

Imagine yours truly post pubescence;
(no matter ye never met me)
all that life in front of one young buck
argh... precious time squandered;
I blithely would surrender
entire corporel being
lock, stock, and barrel,
whereby mine fractured mindscape abustle
with rattle and hum of compulsions
most time consuming innocuous rituals
slavishly buzzfeeding pet peeves.

Anorexia nervosa ranked
as thee moost detrimental
upon cusp of prepubescence;
I metaphorically teetered
and tottered on the brink
of deep analogous
Russian Siberian exile.

While awaiting piano lesson
(circa early 1970's)
collapsed unto the floor
Barbara McCall, née Youngblood
helplessly watched her student (me)
he flailed, garbled, hobbled...
succumbed into heart of darkness
softly wailing "I cannot live anymore"
or some such grievous plaintive utterance.

Long befuddled long dazed journey into night
began to hound my doggone noggin
while in the throes of puberty
voices dictated me to forego
first one meal, two, then all hunger pangs
eventually stymied, squelched, and silenced.

Dumbfounded family members
(father, mother, and deux sisters)
baffled, and thought
precious progeny and brother respectively
possibly involved with drugs
(an easier fix in retrospect),
versus shattered psyche (mine)
analogous to Humpty Dumpty mishap
only far more serious.

Even curious peers queried me
during lunchtime understandably asking,
whether non intake of food
nsync and/or linkedin
with particular religion,
which inquisitiveness answered
with shrug of shoulders,

cuz reason without rhyme
i.e. existential crisis
impossible mission to communicate
at that moment, whereby
all ears and eyes turned toward me
I wanted to crawl into
a black hole and disappear.

I felt absolutely zero joie de vivre
(no surprise stating the obvious)
essentially loathed being alive
when fellow students grilled me
(unspoken tongue in cheek retort
cheeses crust inaudibly uttered).

A short while prior
before anorexia nervosa got free rein
to ride amuck
analogous to red
(angry) bulls running roughshod
think utmost helter skelter
my mother acquired degree
as licensed practical nurse
courtesy local vocational trade school.

She crafted nutritious concoctions,
yet interestingly enough
did not watch me like a hawk
rather left her sole skinny son
with task to consume sizable quantity
without dereliction to pour
said healthy drink down toilet.

I quickly established routine sipping elixir
whereby yours truly filled
little plastic measuring cup
then painstakingly nursed
said tumbler size capful
down gullet - good to the last drop,
which inexorably time consuming process
found hardly any spare hours
for any other (necessary
or otherwise) function.

Eventually solid food intake
integrated with pureed secret ingredients,
yet even the painful prospect receiving
iron inoculations into bony buttucks
(punitive punishment gladly accepted)
without curbing appetite for self destruction,
which as an aside mother dearest
never disclosed constituent parts
comprising blended conglomerate
when, some few decades later,
she went to her grave.

Now run the polemics
The rigged
Oil derricks
The towers you build
On the backs of the peasants
The offices brimming with
Cushy class clerics
The barracks
The ballots
The bastions
The bills
And the overprescribed
Overkilling us
Pills
Overfilling our plates
With dysmorphic
Ideals
Underserving
Community meals
You conceal
Generations of trauma
Decades of decay
For a gilded age
Golden gate
Ethno-state’s
Grave