Tag: eating disorders

Diet Honey

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Your lips leak diet honey, the bees love it all the same.

They overwork their hours so you would know their name.

The stormy coasts don’t frighten when you drive a sugar rush,

And when the clouds tighten, their wills turn into mush.

Your severed limbs seem dancy while your two heads sing.

They bow to the bared bones and kiss the rusty rings.

But as I scream in terror, they laugh at me with pity.

The clothes they made me yesterday will no longer fit me.

So I get high on diet honey, I lose spite to fleeting words,

Stumbling through the hell you summoned here on all fours.

I wonder how to ease this noose you’ve now tied around me,

I wonder if I should because the others wear it proudly.

-JW

To Escape The Neon Hourglass

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Photo by Nikolai Ulltang from Pexels

My feet are carrying me ahead – through the dense forest, down the hill.

Trees squeezing together tightly to keep me from moving, to keep me still.

I know the night is almost over but the branches refuse to let in the sun –

As long as they convince me that the darkness endures, I believe I am the only one.

There is a gleam in the distance, it spins like a disco ball, it blurs my vision.

My boots sink into the moss as I trip over the shrubs trying to escape this gimmick.

But there is nowhere to go, only this evergreen vault crushing my ribs.

I am crawling and panting, the thought of stopping seems sweeter than figs.

No, there must be a path that leads to the other side, there must be some hope.

The woods chuckle at my silliness as a breeze pushes me on a downward slope.

My nails are bloody, fingers so raw they burn, knuckles whiter than snow.

The tentacles of another violent forest creature drag me towards the neon glow.

I stab with all my anger, I bite and snarl until it drops me in the grass.

“Keep your head down,” I repeat to myself, managing to ignore the hourglass.

With the force of a hurricane I grab my hunting knife and hurry away,

Through leaves, cones and pine needles my legs fight the desire to stay.

Even through my frantic breathing I hear the black abyss collapsing behind me.

I stumble closer to the real light, it is darting towards me, lukewarm and shiny.

The forests fail to claim my body yet another time, but they will return.

One day I might gather the courage to let all the twigs and roots burn –

But not today. If I only sprint faster,

I can take a step closer to the point of no return.

-JW

Dysmorphic

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The coldness builds up in my stomach and neck,

A cold palm wrapping tighter around the edges,

Tighter around the wreck.

My insides shake violently, they dance around,

And I want to scream “No!” at strangers

But I can’t make a sound.

The coldness takes over my breathing, my jaw.

I grasp what’s left of me, I try to move away,

I claw and claw, and claw…

But it’s freezing my brain, the mirrors are milky.

No space left for a thought or a gulp of air.

My tongue feels silky.

The worst kind of poison is cutting open my head,

A merciless killer questioning my worth,

Leaving my body in shreds.

The coldness starts tasting like the sweetest morphine,

It fools my eyes completely, unavoidably

As I turn dysmorphic.

-JW

Ana

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Hands on my body, her hands are getting me drunk.

It was hard to say no so I jumped off, I sunk.

All the flags are rosy if your eyes are pumped with blood,

If your “no” causes storms and a biblical flood.

Hands on my hands, her palms get me so damn angry.

The fangs pierce my neck and she keeps the pills handy –

Just in case I try to outrun my faith and leave her be

So she chants “it’s you and me, baby” like a prophecy.

Hands on my throat, her hands are taking my breath.

I’m ready to submit while she quotes Macbeth.

All the flags are red but she’ll turn you colour-blind

And you’ll only see the best your future can offer

When it’s already behind.

-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

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

The Mirror Room

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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

Cain

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Being at ease is not easy when the mind is buzzing louder than the latest news.

It’s like living with a python, fearing constriction, then you find a bite and a bruise.

Has it been venomous all along? Was I running the wrong way for years?

Should I just feed it with the last of my pride and some one night volunteers?

No matter how much I nourish the beast, it comes back hungrier; I get paranoid.

Why is it making me go bankrupt, does it not know – nothing will fill the void?

Truth be told – nothing fills me up either so maybe she’s a worthy enemy after all?

God was reciting Corinthians but I was fortunate enough to miss that disrupted call.

Yes, you could say I’m lacking faith, playing with fiery positions keeps me at bay –

But don’t you be offended, at the end of the day I order this chaos and I pay.

And please avoid being gracious about my struggles to pay a rent for this brain…

With the corner of my eye I see shop windows reflecting the shadows of Cain.

-JW

Amateur

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“She looks like a porcelain doll thrown on the floor, then glued together.

Beauty might be timeless but the cracks are visible, pressed deep into the leather.”

Sure, I’ll be by her side when another piece falls out and she’s unable to cope –

But it’s not me she needs. It’s a realization that only she can slow the downwards slope.

Another sour lover or back-alley deal won’t make her understand, no way.

Who am I to judge how she hangs in there by the very last thread, I’m no saint.

All I can do is tell her that no one notices the porcelain shattered inside of her.

“The cracks might even be imagined,” I say. And she plays along.

What an amateur.

-JW

August Days

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Finger painting my own reflection, deflecting.

A voice is calling me but I find it vexing.

Palms covered in sparkles as temperature raises.

I’ve survived burns, I’ve survived blazes

But somehow this moment pierces my skin.

Do I fit the box that they put me in?

Colors on colors pour down my neck, down my back.

When I turn to look, it’s once again painted black.

Cryptic signs appear in the mirrors as I lay dying…

I’ll never get the picture just right, there’s no denying.

–JW