"laxatives" poems
You say, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”
but I say surely something
must taste nicer than the burning acid
being forced back up your throat.
Why not hug people instead of
toilet bowls? At least they’ll hug back.
Except Mia is your only friend now.
And her cousin, Ana, of course.
And I understand that you never
wanted to die, but this is a thousand ton truck
hurtling towards the edge of a cliff and
Ana took the wheel a long time ago.
There is no strength in this: in you, in a
fear of calories. Even your bones creak
as your muscles sigh with exhaustion -
for this, is not a war you're winning.
This is a battle with only one contender
and I will not be the one to disarm you.
That's your job and it always has been. I know
you only wanted to be beautiful
like all those stars in the magazines
you saved under a file titled ‘thinspo’
but the only stars you ever saw were in
your eyes from the dizziness
and to tell you the truth, you are not pretty.
For there is nothing “pretty”
about the layer of fuzz your body grew
to protect itself from the big bad wolf
when really, the only growl was coming
from inside your stomach.
Or how your little sister is afraid to touch,
let alone hug you, in fear of snapping you in two.
For there is no glamour in having to
remove clumps of hair out of the plughole
at least six times whilst having a shower,
just to let the water run down.
Or that one time you "accidentally”
took too many laxatives. Messy.
There is nothing admirable about the way
you sat shivering on your bed
at night instead of kissing boys,
or dancing, or eating ice cream.
There is nothing to be marvelled at
in dying.
This, is not a life to be lived.
God, this isn't even a life.
This is being a slave to your own body,
a walking zombie, a ghost stuck
between two sides.
You are not alive.
But it was all still worth it, right?
Slowly killing yourself from the inside out.
A small price to pay for perfection,
a bargain for a broken mirror;
for a half-written book
with 97 blank pages,
a camera
that only captures in black and white,
a clock
with frozen hands.
And most importantly, for a peace of mind
you never received.
No refunds.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
You don't need the smoky colored quartz dangling in your hair,
Or the liquid rubies painted onto your soft lips,
Or the powdered gold dusted onto your eyelids to hide the look of pain.
You don't need the silver buttons strung up your shirt to make your aura seem pure,
Or the perfect pearls around your throat to tease and allure,
Or the obsidian skirt hugging your thighs to add the finishing touch.
You don't need the diamond blade to make you bleed imperial topaz onto your marble floor,
Or the laxatives made of howlites to cut your figure thin,
Or the breast implants made of danburites to make you seem attractive.
You are worth more than the emeralds that people compare your eyes to.
You are worth more than the sapphires that make up the water in your body.
And you are worth more than the taaffeites that compose the air you breath.
You are a perfect angel without the expensive things.
Just sing sweet lullabies of the truth and be yourself,
To ensure you live in a beautiful reality.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 9:31 AM UTC
Many people worry about their weight
In case it stops them ever getting a date
But gaining a few odd pounds is nothing
Just the result of a few days' greedy scoffing.
It's when you gain a couple of stones+,
And oozing fat smothers all your aching bones,
When your butts squelch against each other
Then you know you are a big fat mother.
But the cure for this is but a simple job:
You wire a padlock o'er your greedy gob.
Take daily laxatives and have no fear:
All will be relieved by constant diarrhoea.
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 8:13 AM UTC
Thats how I will remember her; just as she was. Laying in my bed wearing her rastafarian drug rug that twinned my own, holding my lanyard close and my brother even closer. She laughed as she watched me drink lemonade that I later learned contained laxatives, and she avoided any type of emotional outburst that didn’t reveal that she just might not be okay. As I started to exit my room and said “Goodbye”, she surprised me.
“Don’t say that Bean.”
I looked down at one brown eye and one eye colored fake blue with a contact lens, and I saw sadness in both. So I smiled sadly and said,
“Instagram you later.”
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 11:32 AM UTC
i cannot write anything
it's all in my head
and i can see it but
it won't come out
no matter how hard i push
my mind is constipated
and laxatives aren't helping
i'm not sure what to do
i can write ******** and
tell myself that's good enough
but it's not and it's so
******* frustrating
and depressing how
unhappy i am with my creative self
i am not creating enough
and i feel stagnant and stuck
no matter how much **** i use
my mind is still a dry desert
and it's painful to keep trying
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 6:35 PM UTC
I see a lot of glamorising of eating disorders
everywhere
what is so glamorous about sticking your fingers down your throat
using laxatives because you cant cope
starving yourself
there is nothing glamorous about eating disorders
they're mental illnesses which need to be addressed
I have an eating disorder
and I can tell you this
there's nothing glamorous about this
not one little bit
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 3:09 PM UTC
And my nerves
Are like useless hands
At the edge of an
Argument.
My foot had a fight
With a brown brogue
And lost,
And it pays for its defeat
With nakedness.
I carry a jaundiced bag
On my hip,
Like an oversized yellow blister,
And I empty it
With a tremored hand
Against the cistern.
Half of my face
Went numb and
I dumbly
Stared into the bathroom mirror,
Astounded that I
Could still smile.
My most meaningful relationship
Is with laxatives!
I romanticise my gut,
Where the flora lives,
Because you have to
Love your body,
Somehow -
Don’t you?
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 9:21 AM UTC
Burning bridges,
so my make shift
bat-wings
can start flying
up and the ****
out of hell.
All the way across
the river
to the better side.
yeah, everyone's go some ****
to say.
Everyone is
full of it too.
You either need
a fistful of laxatives
or a fist in your face.
Talk ****
get electrocuted.
The Lord,
works in mysterious ways.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:29 PM UTC
I am here and it is the day after.
I lift a pile of unread mail off of a chair and open the blinds,
And watch the sun boil the dust in the air. I set and I take it in.
The room smells of old corsets and perfumed talcum powder.
An antique Lady Schick Consolette hair dryer
Hides partly obscured under the heavy frame of the carved mahogany bed
Along with stacks of magazines and catalogs and…………
God knows what else lurks there.
And I realize that I am the only one now lurking,
Looking into a room that had been forbidden to me
The soul domain of the lady of the house.
But she in not here to make things tidy for this impromptu visit.
She would be so shamed by my eyes taking this all in,
Her secrets, her pills, her special candies, her oils, her perfumes -
All of the alchemical accruements of femininity in jars and tiny boxes.
And the symbols of her wizardry, her diamond encrusted Eastern Star ring,
Pendants, broaches, earrings, necklaces, bobbles, bracelets, clasps, loose pearls-
From a strand I broke long ago during happier days.
The sun dust boils from this cauldron now,
This stuffy, over stuffed chamber of perfume and chocolate,
Of daybeds and special treatments, laxatives, gels, powered and pills.
I dream…..a can of gas and a match would be a fitting end
And then I see it on the dresser, an old photo of a family, a pretend family
And a face is cut out of it, his face…….and so I feel, for a moment
Her pain and see the world has she may have seen it. So be it. It is done.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
At three or so I would awaken
Out of a fragile sleep
to the clang of pots and bowls
Cabinets, silver spoons and a measuring cup
Pancakes fried in a skillet
Buckwheat from a box
I don’t know how long I lay there
Listening
And I wondered whom else in the house can hear
I was closest to the door that led to you
Just one door that separates
Were the others in this darkened house staring at the wall or ceiling? Counting?
Afraid, just a little.
Thinking about the morning
when it comes
After your feeding,
the kitchen
would be cleaned to its former glory
Spotless
And into the bathroom
Right next to my ears
You would step softly and close that door behind you
Turning on the sink’s faucet
And then the shower
Taking the laxatives
And wait
I wait
We all wait in this house for you to finish
It goes on and on
And then you turn off the water
Go back to bed
And maybe then I can sleep
Again.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 2:14 PM UTC
150: "I've never had a fat girlfriend" your now ex-boyfriend explains when questioned about the reason why he said the two of you just won't work. He tells you that "he thinks you're cute, but would be much cuter if you lost a few pounds". His words echo in your brain until eventually insults are the only thing you can force yourself to swallow.
120: Everyone is congratulating you on your extraordinary weight loss, they all want to know your secrets. You don't tell them that every night you're on your knees worshipping the toilet bowl. That the only chocolate you've tasted in months is the chalky, sweetness of the laxatives that you take like a daily vitamin. That you don't allow yourself food until the emptiness inside you threatens to steal your consciousness. Instead, you smile and say "must be good genes".
90: You get into a fight with your mother after she tries to force you to eat dinner with your family. You ate yesterday, this will throw off all the goals you've been striving towards. You no longer know how to survive if you're not destroying yourself in the process.
90: You run into your ex boyfriend at the local Walmart with his new girlfriend. She's heavier than you are, but her eyes still shine like lighthouses, he hasn't gotten to her yet. You try to telepathically tell her to run, to leave while she's still whole, but you know the message gets lost on its way. So you settle for a smile, and a compliment to the figure she still has.
120: It's so hard to live in a society where perfection is unattainable but at the same time required... However, it's not impossible. You are already in recovery, you've made it through the hardest part. It's so much better to be full of food than full of empty wishes.
150: Your new girlfriend whines about how jealous she is of your curves, compares your body to that of an ancient goddess. You hesitantly accept the compliment, still not comfortable with imagining your body as anything other than the curse he made you think it was. Darling, your body is not the curse, your body is the blessing... I'm glad you've finally started treating it as such.
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC
Not sure if this would be consider taboo
To even mention the view
Did I just hear her say the word touche
When the doctor proceeded to do what she had to do
With stage crew and camara in hand
Filming what little dignity I have left
Are the tapes rolling, I may need consoling
When this crazy trip finds somewhere to land
Do I even need to mention the day before
Pills and laxatives by the score
To clean out my innards must be least 10 pounds thinner
Need I say anything anymore
Back to the uncomfortable crowd
You can hear a pin drop at the sound
For them it's routine, for me a dastardly deed
Could someone please send in the clowns
Adding a touch of savoir faire
Excuse me, is there enough room in there
If things get a bit tight make sure the pliers are sanitize
Anyone up for a game of truth or dare
Doesn't get anymore personal than this
Best friends now without even a kiss
Operation at 7 film at 11
To be viewed YouTube via Internet
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 10:57 AM UTC
Don't you dare ruin her again.
This girl means everything to me and if you are ever the cause of her tears then I swear to you I will **** you will my bare hands.
There is a difference between love and lust and I can see that you only want lust.
Everyone can see it.
Everyone except her.
She is blinded by love.
I want to grab her and scream, "Open your eyes. He's using you."
But that would make her sad and the last thing I want is to make her sad.
Ha.
You're clever aren't you?
Picking a vulnerable, loving girl to fill your ****** desires because she won't suspect a thing.
That's low even for you.
Boy, you are so lucky she loves you as much as she does.
How do you live with yourself?
How do you sleep at night knowing that you are filling her head with the idea that you love her when in reality you would leave within a split second.
I've never once heard you tell her you loved her.
That's because you don't love her, you arrogant ****
If you loved her then you wouldn't be "overly friendly" with other girls.
If you loved her you wouldn't make her change to fit your standards.
If you loved her you wouldn't be the reason she used to sit alone at night crying about how you don't love her.
I hope you rot in Hell.
In fact, I'll take you there myself.
<a.t>
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 12:14 PM UTC
i am not pretty because
p r e t t y
isn't an adjective worthy nor suitable to be applied to me
Pretty does not make good
daughterswivesmotherstudentsteachersdoctorsloversrevolutionarieswriterssingershumans
Pretty is an inanimate unfeeling thing while
i am a life force--- a tornado or hurricane whipping through the air with riotgrrrrl gale force winds in the background, leaving pretty behind me in refuse
Pretty isn't synonymous with worth or good hearts.
Pretty isn't getting up in the morning and making breakfast for your hungover friends
it isn't giving someone flowers just because you care
it isn't women in in trenches digging irrigation systems for villages
or building houses for strangers in another country
it isn't the first breathe of a baby in a midwife's arms
or the sound of women being liberated.
It has no sound at all.
I'd like to think that I am that feeling you get in the summer before a large thunderstorm rolls over the mountains
and pretty
isn't
that.
And in sparse occasions that I am deemed worthy enough a piece of meat to earn this verbal badge of honor-- 'pretty'
that feeling will never outweigh the hate and anguish my body went through to earn that
'compliment'
it will never outweigh the meals skipped
laxatives eaten
amphetamines snorted
or times my fingers have been shoved down my throat until the tips of them stung from stomach acid
my body is weary of me punishing it for someone Else's ignorance and my need to hear this silly word & my throat hurts from putting my fingers inside it
& i will be ****** if i spend another second of my life hating myself and hearing women hate themselves because we weren't told we were 'pretty' as often as we would have liked
So no, I will never be 'pretty' -- I will be much more.
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 1:58 AM UTC
I'm trying so hard to fit in,
But the pressure is high to be masculine.
I go to the gym everyday
For at least 4 hours - that's the way
to keep on losing all of this weight.
I can't remember the last time that I ate.
Water fasts, laxatives, diuretics galore,
This is an illness no one should ignore.
1 stone, 2 stone, 3 stone gone,
Nothing left for my body to live on.
But nobody listened when I asked for help in this,
Because I am a male my struggles with anorexia went amiss.
I became dangerously underweight,
My organs began to fail - now I know my fate.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 3:57 PM UTC
I thought I'd hit rock bottom when
I was sixteen and blowing my mind
When I was seventeen and
My weight was that of a child
I thought I'd hit rock bottom when
I drank for days on end to seek
A piece of mind that never came
Losing my innocence by the week
I thought I'd hit rock bottom when
My closest friends were blades
And I lay in a hospital bed
After taking too many pills again
I thought I'd hit rock bottom when
I spent hours holding my head
Over toilet bowls, or when
I prayed to wake up dead
I thought I'd hit rock bottom when
Laxatives ate my money and
My body and I let visions of
Maddening girls take me by the hand
But now I see I had further to fall
I had more to lose in you
Now I can't even take those actions
I have nothing more to do.
© Tara India.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 9:14 AM UTC
Perfect is cold showers in the morning
Perfect is long walks 'til your feet are too weary to take another step
Perfect is working out 'til you faint
Perfect is my hands around my thighs
Perfect is my elbows bigger than my arms
Perfect is my ribs like guitar strings
Perfect is my thumb and my pinky meeting at my shoulders
Perfect is my hips like anchors below my waist
Perfect is my spine like thorns on my palms
Perfect is my collarbones like hinges on my throat
Perfect is the immense gap between my thighs
Perfect is a diet soda and a ******* for a whole day
Perfect is 16 bites a bitsy cupcake
Perfect is guilt in every swallow and throwing up afterwards
Perfect is slits on my wrist after eating
Perfect is my clothes that fit like blankets
Perfect is the scale on 35lbs
Perfect is to be lighter than air
Perfect is size after zero
Perfect is lying to yourself
Perfect is denying you're starving to death
Perfect is 21 calories for a whole week
Perfect is not eating
Perfect is must not eat
Perfect is laxatives and diuretics
Perfect is empty
Perfect is skinny
Perfect is reality in a trance
Perfect is just-breathing
To embrace perfection is to live inside a dead body with an empty soul;
To tacitly prepare for your grave while struggling everyday to survive
Perfection is your frame in a frame
Perfection is death
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
welcome to ana heaven
where people are collar bones
and thigh gaps are God
we are fragile, like petals
the only simile that saves me
from the harsh reality
i don’t look at you, i look through you
x-ray vision desecrates you
i don’t see you as human
i see bones
you are not thin yet, child
come with me, and it’ll be worth your while
or you collapse into the clouds
and god forbid, you fall back to Earth
stay in play land
where we live off tea and acid reflux
where we spit up food
and giggle like babies
at the sight of our malnourished bodies
give me ana heaven, sick skin
give me laxatives, stick thin
or i have nothing at all.
Nov 20, 2019
Nov 20, 2019 at 11:03 PM UTC
We're weathering this unbecoming world of words. In the womby vortex of disgusting speech. We're not the movement in which your mouth commoves in disgusting misuse and hellacious abuse. Shame on you! We're already sickened by your pageantry and similar symbolism, simile, and pedantic matters of the hand. Someone should have stopped you. Your shoes don't fit and are rather unflattering. We're well rested Reader's of the greater digest and your context is unsuitably off. We've noted this recipe of disasterous dactyls and abhorrent lines that masquerade limerick like a proverb when it ought not be an idiom. We're weary to walk in your idiot-dom, your startlingly stark choice of anti-matter, and material of unsettling misuse so indigestibally obtuse. She says you've manufactured passages with verbose tapestries of word laxatives. We're unimpressed by how many fuxks you've given. Lessons like these are earned not given, not learned but lived. We're not meant to cure your ails, only forward your adjectives, and collect your mail.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 9:47 AM UTC
My dad has always wanted me to write more happy poems, but joy has never rolled off my tongue as eloquently as sorrow.
I tried to sit down the other day and write a poem about the before. But after hours of searching my brain, I realized that I don't remember my body as anything other than the desolate, war-torn site it currently is.
I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment the switch was flipped. Go back to the day I woke up unhappy and force myself to go back to bed. I wish I could rewrite history and completely erase the first time I skipped a meal. I'd throw all the laxatives in the garbage. I never would have bought my first razor blade. Or my second. Or my third. I wouldn't have gotten sent to the hospital.
I guess it's true what they say about hindsight being 20/20. It's so much easier for me to look back on it, knowing what I know now.
I know that people didn't suddenly love me more just because I was less to take in. And scars are permanent; they don't fade just because the feelings attached to them do. I also realize that the only thing the hospital stay did was make me more of a burden to my family.
I'd love to tell 10 year old Briauna all this before she has to face it on her own, but why would she believe me? I wouldn't want to believe me either. Who would want to go watch a movie, when all the reviews rated it a waste of time?
So if I were to go back into the past, I'd focus on telling my younger self about the rebirth rather than the wreckage. I would tell her that tattoos will someday take the place of self-inflicted scars. That this time around there was a beauty behind the pain. That one day she will relearn what it means to eat whenever she's hungry and not stop until she's full. I'd tell her that nothing good ever came from being empty. I'd talk about how she adores others blindly and never lets her passion be dimmed. I'd tell her not to stress when the urge to claw her skin off remains well into recovered territory because she gets better at remembering to trim her nails.
I'd say baby girl I know you can get through this because I'm standing right here.
We'll get through this.
We're getting through this.
We got through this.
Jul 12, 2016
Jul 12, 2016 at 11:23 PM UTC
Nowadays, we learn that size is everything
We learn not to believe in the comforting words of our peers,
We learn, thinner you are, the more you're worth.
It seems that we've become archeologists, because all we want to see are bones.
You are only valuable if we can see your bones.
And now, we see these kids who suffer in silence, who intentionally skip their meals, who take fingers to their throat, or go to the store to look for skinny pills and laxatives
It isn't something these kids can just stop, it becomes part of them
It went from an experience to a habit.
From a habit to an addiction.
From an addiction and now a condition
A year later those same kids are going to treatment for heart disease, ulcers, and eating disorders. They'll go to the dentist for their tooth enamel that no longer even exists
But how did they let it get this far?
How did WE let it get this far?
They begged and begged but little did they know how much they were really losing besides weight.
They have lost their time, their dignity, their self worth, their identities, and possibly their lives.
It wasn't their fault, they just wanted to be pretty
This should not be the cost of beauty.
Ever.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 10:19 PM UTC
the female adolescent is beautiful
in black and white
colour loses depth
we see everything like a small puppy
isn't the what you want?
innocence?
naive little girls who can't hold their own?
who can barely stand on their own two feet?
the female is a miraculous creature
she carries herself like a feather on a cool breeze
maybe because she's so frail & the wind is so loud
oh the feeling of hunger pains on a cold winter morning
wondering if maybe im small enough now to feel the wind in my bones
freezing my enamel
wondering how many calories are in toothpaste
or the bleach we swish around in our mouths to whiten our teeth
we eat pills for breakfast
anti-depressant
Prozac
laxatives
Xanax
and hair & nail supplements
so we can look beautiful while dying
dabbling in hobbies like
shopping
buying makeup
fainting while walking to the bus stop
hunching over the toilet while top model plays in the background
shaming our metabolisms for not being able to burn through a tic tac fast enough
yelling at our doctors for claiming that our
"hearts are too big for such a small body"
boys think we dumb ourselves down to make ourselves more appealing
little do they know the number of times we bang on our heads to knock out the unclean thoughts like
food or
sleep
how our brain cells die each time we slap away our frowns & replace them with painted smiles
small dumb Barbie dolls
plastic
easily ripped apart
we hide our pain with concealer
bruised from bumping into counters
purple knees
carrying a rubber band for months till that rubber band is carrying us
slapping our wrists to warrant authority
because beauty has power over everything
measuring the space between our thighs
yanking at the skin that will never leave
measuring the space between the blade and our wrists
remembering that scars will only make it worse
measuring the space between now and never
realizing life is a thing
realizing life would be better without you
realizing you haven't weighed yourself today
gathering your fears in mason jars
collecting your tears & mailing them to places far, far away
the female adolescent is beautiful
but only in black and white
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
We're anything and everything but atypical.
Anorexia. Bulimia. OSFED, binge or orthorexia.
Hell, there's even hybrids now: diabulimia.
There's a name for every demon I've eaten. For the thing that lives inside of me; feeding off of starvation.
There's power in it. You know, the kind of sick courage that comes from skipping meals and counting calories.
Lower numbers, lower anxieties.
When you're thin it's an eating disorder, they say.
When you're fat it's called a diet, they say.
We're surviving on pills and Coke Zero. This isn't the 80's, honey, SlimFast doesn't work as well as two fingers do.
I was taught that pain is beauty, but laxatives on an empty stomach are far from pretty.
I don't want to be beautiful, I want to be nothing. Not a thing in this world. What do I want?
To be like an Angel: perfection on the inside and out.
To be both powerful and protected. In control and out of it.
Is this Schrodinger's eating disorder?
It goes deeper than food. Farther than the veins; blue and translucent underneath my skin.
I'm cold and gone, honey. This thing has got a hold on me.
I'm water, tea, early mornings and late nights. Scales, chewing gum and breath mints.
I'm crushed by the weight hanging off of my bones, and I don't know how to get better.
Nov 22, 2017
Nov 22, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC
Do you breathe with your lungs?
Or with your throat
Maybe you have respitory troubles
Like a goat
Do you drink too much soda?
All that syrup and bubbles . . . .
Soda pop is not water you know
There could be trouble
Do you have trouble using the toilet?
Constipation will spoil it
Don't be lax about laxatives
Maybe your colon needs to give
Do you have ADD or ADHD?
That's like watching 4 television screens
How are you supposed to collect information?
This is why you may have complications
Do you eat too fast?
Your energy won't last
Eat hard bread that you must chew
Stop drinking Mountain Dew
Do you get enough sunlight?
Every minute matters
Sit outside when you can
Maybe you will chatter
In two years from today you could be strong
That's what's wrong
You want the future to arrive now
You have to wait, anyhow
What music do you like?
I find melodies to be wishful and sad
Dance beat music makes blood flow
Not that melodies are always bad
Broken hearts may never heal
There's still much you can do
Save somebody else from this fate you have
Be true
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 3:19 AM UTC