I am flesh and bones and blood and muscles and organs. I am scars and tattoos and piercings and make-up and hair dye and scabs and skin. I am pain and anger and love and trust and misery and honesty and fear. I am fire and edges and thunderstorms and whispers and bite-marks and lust and the second the shutter snaps down. I am tired and energised and head and heart and old and new and life and death. 
I am able to carry the world on my shoulders but even a leaf could crush me where I stand.

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.

Tell Me.

Tell me how to quieten my mind without emptying my body,
how to walk through the trees without counting the time,
tell me how to feel like I’m not just so normal
without watching the numbers decrease, yes I’m trying

Tell me how to taste without feeling guilty,
teach me how to feel full without wanting to gag,
pull me to my feet when I fall down on bruised knees,
rub my soul back into my skin, trace lines down my back 

The darkness is calling but the light wants me closer,
though the numbness and bruises are beckoning me home,
I’m nothing without it, I can’t trust the brightness,
it may stay for a while but it always leaves me alone 

Open my mouth and force in seeds full of sunshine,
listen to me whisper, watch blood fall from my lips,
watch me twist, and morph into monsters,
hear me cry over razor-sharp hips

Elusive memories flutter around my eyelids,
fingers dancing across jutting bones,
it’s time to start smiling, a voice breathing gently,
but just as I said, darkness is calling me home. 

Fear,
scratching,
a tiny little piece of glass,
stuck,
under my skin,
a constant ache,
making me heavier,
digging nails,
hopeless,
drowning,
doubt,
longing,
skin crawling,
shiver,
my brain shudders,
sadness,
the sunshine just makes me feel worse
about not wanting to go outside,
and I can't think of a way to remove the boulders
blocking the path to the light.

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.

5/6/12

Numbness and
that stony cold silence
that is so much better than
the rage and deafening noise
of the warm sickening tightness
in the belly and 
I forgot how much I love 
emptiness 
and shrinking 
not expanding
and being able to lie down and know that
I may want to disappear
but I am doing so
instead of lying there 
knowing that I failed and
wanting to tear off my skin and fly away
as a weightless soul
at least, at least,
at least I am getting there by
denying myself
instead of filling myself up and then helplessly watching the expansion
instead of feeling so conspicuous and stretched outwards
but denying is really rewarding
because in the morning
when there is flatness instead of bloating
it may not be flat enough
but it is flatter than before