Tag: body dysmorphia

The Judge

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Spent another day in my own basement letting the rain dull my thoughts,

Arranging a courtroom in my unfair mind, bowing to rusty metal gods.

I hear the jury sitting down upstairs, I hear the judge using his new gavel.

My brain’s ushered away to be used as evidence in this case yet to unravel.

The court proceedings fill me with dread, they’re agonizingly numbing.

Yet – my spite’s done with beatings so I choose to abuse thy cunning.

I watch my mouth spew sharp arguments, all based on years of correcting me.

They dig deep even though I promised to never call myself an enemy.

My tongue splatters acidic liquids over the already damaged wallpaper

And the windows shatter in deadly pieces, ready to let me meet my makers.

The body’s giving in to the pressure so I really start wondering – how come?

Why do I keep fixing the floors and ceilings if I still call this palace a slum?

But you know the answer, and so do I.

The judge catches me in a terrible lie

I’m bound to another day down here,

Self-imprisoned, ready to disappear.

-JW

Sicker = “Healthier”

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“No one ever imagined. No one ever knew.

Nobody could tell because you weren’t that blue.”

The more you faded, the more it was praised

And everyone saw your illness but believed –

Your standards were raised.

So you became “healthier” when you got sicker.

“The pulsating veins and blood shot eyes will pass

But you will forever look like a sticker.”

A prize. A gift. The golden medal for someone else

Who never notices how pain rots on the shelves

But sex sells.

You never relied on those ideals, but they lived within you.

Too deep rooted to untangle from your truth

So no one ever knew

How the broken version of you was all fiction,

How you begged for mercy to nights

As they created the most friction

To a troublesome concept of worth in a young mind.

Why be kind? Why resist and leave it all behind?

Truth be told –

Almost no one that pushed this onto me so sincerely

Truly made it out, never saw it clearly.

But you don’t owe a single second of illness

To people who believe your existence is a grimness,

And to those still imposing standards on others I can only tell:

Save your self-hate speeches masked as advise for yourself.

Choke as long as needed. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.

-JW

Introduction To An Unreliable Narrator

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Did I promise to tell you the truth with all these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

I can’t hold an honest conversation about my pain

Not thinking it’s a competition that consumes my brain.

Yes, I’m sick, swallowed by the system and chewed up,

Looking like a normal product of society, maybe, somewhat.

My left foot chained to a curling iron thinning it out,

My right arm drained of its blood by panic and yesterday’s doubt.

But you might pass me in the street wondering how I’m so well –

And truthfully, no one but me could really tell

How a mess of a human presents that well on the front page

Or the Facebook feed of another lover I blocked with rage…

Did I promise to tell you the truth with these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

Whatever you heard – must be worth all the energy to get this far,

And if you believe that I’m being honest, you might have a heart.

-JW

The Origin Story

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One of those way too hot summer days but I’m trying to make it work.

Haven’t had a meal since Monday, yet I’m feeling they’re ready to lurk.

Putting my best foot forward on the dusty, forgotten town roads at north –

Not even five minutes in, a horde on my back breaking all the walls,

Even the fourth.

The sentences sneak up slowly, they’re there to capture and also – to kill.

Haven’t thought of myself this way. My blood runs cold, it stays still.

Every step I take gets heavier – or am I heavier now? Impossible to tell.

The darkest of thoughts thus far rush to my brain, and my eyes blink,

Ready to swell.

Shaking and scared to the core, I walk faster to avoid the burning heat

Of the words spoken so meanly, so categorically, and I know I don’t deserve

The right to breathe

Unless I’m good enough, tiny and form-fitting enough,

Plenty from all the sides and angles enough,

Enough, enough, enough.

Why wasn’t it enough?

Why did you have to say it out loud, would it make your parents proud?

Why did you chase me down like a hunter chases down its prey with a hound,

Hoping I won’t make a sound?

Because here I am eight years later writing this story,

Hopeful, enough and proud, wishing my father would call me

To also admit that, honestly, he’s been bathing in his own “sorry”,

And too blinded by the shine of gold, for the lack of a better allegory.

But on my worst days I’m still in that summer day eight years back, ready to go,

To disappear into nothing – if that’s more pleasing to strangers who I don’t even know.

Placing my best foot forward, keeping it together so tight it my break my heart altogether

But I guess it’s all a circumstance of the gruelling weather

And my thighs not being lighter than a fallen feather.

-JW

New Chapter

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Blood on my trembling fingers from yesterday’s out of control rendezvous.

I don’t think I’m ready to ask questions with answers dipped in your blues.

It’s true, wanting everything from my past to be torn apart isn’t a solution

But I’ve waited too long for a happy ending, not another mediocre conclusion.

“I love you so much it pains me,” I say, looking at a gold framed mirror.

Bought this one myself in a vintage shop made for people-shaped errors.

Painted my walls white and took the hoarded neon to another graveyard –

I spilled my paint going there, then accidentally became the vanguard

Of some new, braver movement… Sorry, I can’t really recall their name.

They told me tales about the fame monster but I won’t listen to reason

When it comes to my shame.

So there’s still blood on my hands and I should admit – it’s probably mine.

Cutting your heart open becomes a hobby if you start practising when you’re nine.

Bleeding yourself dry daily for other’s mistakes feels OK, you’ve gotten better.

But I’m still unable to remember a time where I looked at myself

And didn’t feel dry or bitter.

May this mirror I’ve bought myself serve as a reminder of how I’m here, breathing,

And if I happen to bleed for my own life again, that’s because I’m leaning on myself,

The one person honest enough to drop her habit of being deceiving,

Instead of running for the hills, walking the walk through the delayed grieving.

May this mirror be the first thing to remind myself I am not perfect at it,

But I am healing.

-JW

Stolen Mirrors

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White bedroom walls, all matte,

not a reflection in sight.

She was willing to die for that,

not for being right.

Sun turned up to the brightest,

not some neon light.

The words in her head – not biased,

not always ready to bite.

No mirrors testing her worth,

not a noise in the realm.

Her body wasn’t the hearth

and she took over the helm.

“Rest, dear, you’ve been hurt,”

She whispered, still overwhelmed.

“Years spent in standards so absurd,

Might as well live with just walls

And skip replacing the doorbell,

Even if you’re compelled.”

She has taken over the helm.

-JW

The Mirror Room

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Photo by Lukáš Dlutko from Pexels

I’m in the mirror room again. Nothing but reflections on reflections.

You can’t hide from the truth because facts don’t win elections.

Wherever you look – another portrait of you, distorted and agonized.

The ones that did it to you run free as devil can’t be penalized.

Everything you see is yourself, and it’s wrong, insufficient, insulting.

Why can’t you take a point chisel to the surface for some sculpting?

Your breath doesn’t taint the picture, it only enhances the desire

To throw yourself against the sharp edges of narcissism for hire.

The light is too bright, it’s blinding you into revealing the mistakes –

All the regrets or moments of doubt are baked into remakes.

You shut your eyes but the reflector in your brain keeps peeking

Into the mirror room again while your confidence keeps leaking.

What are you seeking in those charmed reflections?

Why aren’t you leaving?

-JW