'real girls eat'

it is as i have thought for some time now. the title of the book confirms my life is not a reality.

i knew it.

i stand on my tiptoes in borders. the book hits me in the face. the title beats me down, crushes me into the carpet. i can't cry. not here. not now. not ever.

i am standing on the sidelines, on the border of dangerland, insanity. so close, yet so far away.

they will not satisfy me with a diagnosis, with reassurances, rainbow pills to shroud the monsters in my head with fog. they will not placate me with worry, get well cards, sympathetic smiles, whispers behind my back.

now i know why.

it's because i am not real. and if i am not real then neither is my problem, symptoms, "so good to see you with an appetite."

they just don't see me. i am my cream coat, lolly pink smile, hair about to be cut off. i am the me that they have created in their minds. irrelevant, unreal.

i sit outside jamesandaugustredcurrantbackdoorvalleygirl. it blurs. they don't see me. not the guy with the purple scarf holding the plump girl's hand (a wicked hidden part of me asks why does he loves her when she's not a perfect 0?), not the laughing high school girls who think they're cool because their tartan skirts are two inches short of the regulation knee length, not the dad with curly haired twins in the push chair, the elderly couple, my mother walking towards me, "h - where have you been?"

i am invisible. i am not real.

this is the way they want it. this is the way i want it.

(but if am not a poacher of ivory then why does this realisation sting me in a place that i'd rather left unstung?)

driftwood

in the night i wake up. samurai are sticking my belly with their razors. i can’t talk, i can’t breathe, i can’t think. it takes an eternity for my hand to find the light. another eternity to turn it on.

i can’t move.

my pills call me from the bag on the floor. it takes all my willpower not to pass out when i get up. i find them – sweet sweet magic pills, but then i can’t get back to bed.

the fire traps me.

3:28AM.

in three years time i lie down again. the pain has been going on for days/my whole life/too long.

i try to pray but all that comes out is ‘stop the pain’ and then my next thought (irrationally) is:

‘how could anybody ever have children? this pain is bad enough.’

i'm sure it’s hardly comparable, but your brain doesn’t exactly work right when you are so in pain that you can’t feel anything.

i am swept away on a tidal wave into the darkness.

in the morning the waves wash me back up on the shore.

block your ears

in my room there is a teddy bear wearing a red shirt that says 'giordano' (whatever that means) and blue overalls. the overalls are unravelling and falling down and i keep pulling them back up again. i wouldn't want him to be done for indecent exposure.

on sunday i drive to university. i get lost. why does this keep happening to me? i drive this road every week. i have for almost 2 years now. this is the second week in a row where i have not known where i am.

on monday i wake up (thankfully?), i study, i go to my exam, i eat (because it is required of me) and then i cry because i ate and because i think i failed (the exam and life too). i study again.

on tuesday i wake up (once again i am unsure as to whether this is good or not), i study, i go to my exam, i eat (because she made dinner specially) and then i cry because i ate and because i know i failed (at everything). study calls.

on wednesday i wake up...

this is the song that never ends.

each day i hope for friday. it doesn't come. it never will. i need to go to it.

i think it's time to mend the bear's overalls.

electricity

it seems i speak too soon.

in the night i dream of him. it is perfect. we are perfect. i am me and suddenly when he is there i remember who that is.

then on saturday afternoon i see him. we play a game where we have a sticker with a character's name on it stuck on our backs. we have to guess who we are.

oh the irony.

he talks to me. i don't remember what he says, but he touches my hair when i turn around. you know, they say that hair has no nerves, but they are wrong. they haven't known the jolt of sunshine that goes through you when his hands are on you. i want to be childish and say 'i will not wash my hair for 100 days, until this memory has faded from my mind'.

but i am not a child. how could i forget?

now it is sunday and i am in my room, all 110lbs of me being swallowed whole by physics textbooks, anatomy notes.

i am more determined than ever. i will be a doll, his doll.

i will make a me that both of us want. it can't be that hard. (right?)

a day in the life of -

"you look like you need endorphins."

yes mother. feed them to me on a silver spoon along with chocolate ice cream, high-carb smoothies, peanut butter. prick me with a plastic sword and pour them into my hollow veins.

you don't have to tell me that i am jonah in this dark fish belly life. you don't have to remind me that my world is navy blue. and you don't have to point out that the one splash of golden has long since joined the sunset in alaska.

i know i need endorphins.

i need sleep more.

apathy

i wake up at 7:47AM. this is bad. i should be studying. instead i dream of:

boris teaching us the vasculature of the brain and spinal cord.

being in a falling lift and forgetting to lay down so that all my bones (instead of just my legs) are broken.

walking in the woods at my grandparents house (although really there are no woods, or even any trees).

my sister and childhood best friend and a basket of boston buns and eating and eating and eating.

i dream of lots of things.

i do not dream of you. (do i want to?)

rain

what do you do when the sun isn't shining?

i sit in my shoebox, staring at a hungry screen. i find myself a home in the arms of other angels who know the maddeningly sweet song of sticks and stones and bones and bones and bones. i pretend that i am a baby, already finished university, that the ghosts that haunt me have not crept into the minds of those who i (back when it was on my kindergarten vocab list) love.

i pretend i am alive.

kitten

today i wake up and i am happy for the first time in weeks. not pink glitter and bubbles kind of happiness, just content. i am getting what i want today.

then mother comes in. she sits on my bed. she tells me that i cannot have what will make me happy now. it is not her fault.

she goes out. i want to cut (but i don't). i want to binge (but i don't).

i want to cry (so i do).

i am not happy.

one day

stick girl

baby doll

white powder perfect

fairy dust

scattered

on the sand.

coat hanger collarbones

vertebrae coins

one

on

top

of

the

other.