The rain followed her home every night and squeezed through the cracks in her eyes and found its way into her bloodstream and coursed through her veins. Quite frequently it would turn to fire and burn its way almost to the surface to boil beneath her skin and draw blood from flesh. The screams that echoed continually in every fibre of her being somehow were contained within and only rarely broke free, and even then it just made it worse. Every breath just made her more aware of her excess. Every movement made her conscious of the uncomfortable sensations of being. Every line, curve, and contour must be perfect. It must be, or the world will collapse.

21/06/12

I am crumbling walls
and dusty stone
painted with silent rain 
and tired eyes
I am a darkened way of looking
a freshly opened wound
a worn out smile and
a tattered notebook
read too many times over for the story inside 
to be worth it any more
I am a failed musician
who played his tunes so many times
that people got bored and walked away
I am damaged machinery
clunking angrily every time someone tries to
make me work
I am wilting flowers
once beautiful but now decaying
and the world cries at what a shame it is
and then throws me into the trash
I am broken, and it is everyone’s fault but mine,
and no one’s fault but my own.

The Truth About Eating Disorders. (16th June)

Eating disorders are not beautiful, fragile rays of sunshine floating inside you as you weightlessly take each step, delicately refusing food with a tinkle of laughter, effortlessly avoiding thoughts of calories whilst engaging in a conversation with a friend over a cup of green tea, cigarette in hand, tendrils of smoke drifting above your head, dazzling everyone with your frailty, proudly showing off your bones with a smile on your face.

No, eating disorders are fingers dancing nervously across collarbones and dark circles under your eyelids. Eating disorders are waking up and realising they you have been feeling your hipbones in your sleep. They are the constant and never-ending thoughts of food, weight, exercise, and calories. They are the persistent temptations that you have to work at every second not to give in to. They are insomnia, or sleep plagued with nightmares about binging, anxiety about food, or dreams of being as thin as you wish to be. They are waking up and finding that you are not. They are tidal waves of self-deprecating insults. They are emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, by yourself to yourself. They are bruises appearing with every slight knock. They are glassy-eyed walks to the cupboards, stuffing yourself full with everything that you can find. They are the returning soul, suddenly realising how much you have eaten. They are being bent over the toilet, fingers down throat, spewing vomit into water that gets splashed back into your own face. They are chest pains. They are a raw, burning throat. They are burst blood vessels, and streaming eyes. They are shaking legs. They are having part of you taken away bit by bit until you can enjoy nothing, until there is nothing left to you but numbers and darkness and misery. They are obsession. They are having your relationships destroyed because you are a walking eating disorder who can no longer enjoy or engage in anything else because your mind is too consumed by thoughts to do with food. They are not being able to focus on a conversation because you are either too hungry or you are looking at how your legs look when you are sat down, when they are crossed, when they are apart. They are the development of dissociation, anxiety, obsessive and compulsive tendencies, and depression in one go. They are viewing yourself as fat in every item of clothing that you own. They are daily routines that you cannot and will not change. They are weighing yourself at least every morning and having your mood depend on the number shown. They are weighing out every item of food that you eat so you know the exact calorie content. They are tears and razorblades and despair.
Eating disorders are the idea that you will be able to stop and be happy when you are thin. They are never seeing yourself as that thin even when you are. They are are never, ever, being thin enough. They are the wanting to be happy but having the manipulative “Voice” tell you that recovery would mean “getting fat” and being more miserable. They are the not wanting to die but finding it unbearable to live. They are utter hopelessness and self-loathing when you fail at keeping within your calorie limit- and believe me, you will fail, many times over. They are the endless self-punishments. They are dizziness and nausea. They are fainting and falling. They are living like a zombie: barely getting through each day just so you can go back to bed and attempt to sleep again. They are the feeling of worthlessness, and hate, and anger, and misery. They are the fear of each coming day, and of each coming night. They are the looking in the mirror and only seeing a huge, hideous, disgusting, repulsive, large mound of fat - even when bones jut from every part of your body.
Eating disorders are having your hair thin and maybe even fall out in clumps into the shower or when you brush your hair. They can be lanugo; fine, downy hair that covers emaciated bodies in an attempt to keep them warm. They can be heart murmers, or muscle atrophy, tearing of the oesophagus, gastric rupture, reflux, fatigue, low blood pressure, anaemia, kidney infection or even failure, amenorrhoea (loss of periods), gum disease, tooth decay, infertility, constipation, diarrhoea, seizures, malnutrition, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, impaired neuromuscular function, paralysis, and even death - those aren’t even all the risks.

So if you don’t have an eating disorder and you have looked at someone who does and envied them, I hope this has changed your perspective. Eating disorders are not a choice or a lifestyle; they are life-destroying diseases.

15/05/12

I try to find textures like sunshine
and patterns like summer
and pretty little things that can open up my heart to light
the only times when I can feel a slight glowing within
before it is quickly replaced with cold, dark hands that clutch at my insides
and turn my mind in on itself before I can cry out.
I try to find solace in cigarettes,
cups of steaming tea,
good books,
a warm bed,
photographs, 
and other souls
but
sometimes I take refuge in 
too much of a good thing and then
the bottom of a toilet,
exhaustion,
or lonely fast walks in the middle of the night,
and each good thing fades away in my memory 
until all I am is a build up of numbers, and that is all that is left of me.

15/05/12

I am scratches
and holes in tights
and numbers
and many steps in the dark
I am sweat, blood, and tears
I am heart pumping
knees up
I am long red lines 
and vomit in the bottom of toilets
I am scars and bones
and the lack of prominence
I am dark circles 
bloodshot eyes
and angry black thoughts
I am misery and longing
and a certain sense of forgetfulness
I am aching limbs
blisters
closed lips
and many hot cups of tea
I am cigarette smoke and bleary eyes
I am veins and emptiness, tinged with death.
I am endless.
 

Some of us live
lives so hollow 
that our minds are sewn together by
frail little thoughts of
sun rays and green tea
fragile tiny hopeful glimmers that
appear for only a short time
but they are all that keeps us here

I need sunlight and
short walks 
and daffodils greeting my step
soft green grass
daisies and bumblebees
wooden beams
laughter
warm mattresses
and a clear head

but what I really have is
cold dark days
hard concrete
boxed in rooms
hollow words
and a blackness where my thoughts should be

Apologies.

I want to apologise, if I may,
for the silences,
for the fire,
for the suffocating darkness,
for the marks on my body,
for the marks on my mind,
and for the burden of all of my years that you are shouldering with me.
I want to say that I didn't know that it would return,
and that I would not have wanted to drag you into the dirty ground with me,
and that I am torn between pushing you back up into the sunshine where I cannot follow and letting you have your way.
It's only that there are only a few things left that I enjoy:
the scent of my different types of tea; peppermint, chai, and blackcurrant, amongst others,
cigarettes,
your kisses,
and, the long talks we sometimes have,
sunshine,
and the long talks with my friends.
I find it hard to keep checking the clock to see if it is time to sleep yet,
to breathe a sigh of relief that I have made it through another day,
and that I can escape into nightmares,
which aren't nice either but it is better than being awake.
I never meant to sink,
and it makes it harder knowing that I may sink you too, and again,
I am sorry. 

Eating Disorder.

It is a little late, but this is for Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which was February 20th - 27th.

Today.

Today I feel sad.

In fact, I feel really sad.
That hopeless kind of sad, 
where everything feels awful,
where your whole body feels heavy,
where your mind is clogged with darkness.
The kind where you hide under your sheets,
with the lights off and the curtains drawn,
and wish that the world would disappear,
or better still,
that you would disappear. 

Fire.

The new layer of paint on the wall is cracking,
and those all too familiar bursts of despair are seeping through the gaps.
Hopelessness courses through my body like a poison, 
turning my thoughts black,
forcing open my mouth whilst my brain screams silently inside of my skull.

It rains in the morning,
and I don’t want to get out of bed.

I am incarcerated in this body, and trapped in this mind,
and they follow me everywhere,
and there is no escape.

I am fire, 
and I am burning him alive. 

2.39am

Underneath my skin
like a pin prick
growing to a clawing at my insides

I'm thick like tar and
everything is always wrong
words are wrong and
all the bruises collect and collaborate
to hurt me further

Just be perfect
just for a little while
an undirected request
but I need it


The house smells like Christmas
but I feel the cold seeping in
and the lights turning off


I'm like embers;
smouldering but dying


You're doing so well 
but there's cracks
and they look like chasms to me
where I can confirm my own worthlessness
and spit venom
whilst I hollow out my soul

You,
and I,
we just need to be perfect for a while.