Some more heavy subject matter for you...
This is the first poem I wrote about my past experience with eating disorders and body dysmorphic habits. Writing this poem was quite cathartic for me but I also wanted to raise the topic in order to remove the shame around it. I also wanted to point out how normalised it is to suffer with these tendencies and that notion itself is very much foooocked up. After a years of questioning, mediation, routine changes and a lot of self-love, I feel incredibly blessed to say such tendencies and what were once predominant thoughts are not a current reality for me. I understand this is not the case for everybody and if what I say resonates with you, please know (you probably already do) that there’s services and communities around to support and care for you. For the sake of being a cliche (though for a good reason) don’t suffer alone…it’s overrated.
how little I live
outside my disordered name
soul drifting far above
an empty stomached frame
brain exhausted on insecurity
taunting me, with
each mirror check –
day 903:
feet ok, calves passable,
thighs ok – turn – butt, besides creeping cellulite, ok
stomach fucked, fleshy arms can’t bear
to look. Boyish breasts need plumping
hormones bought on Norway’s eBay – clumping
together my misplaced desire
of someone else’s approval, their eyes grazing me
impatient, waiting for feminine blatancy.
back – passable, a tad too long
neck under red skin, inflamed, wrong
face – disgrace. Purple bruises under
the eyes parading the mark of illness
colonising the entirety, beginning with the
flushed cheeks, their racing yearn to stale in vibrancy
to a plum, eventually matured and crinkly.
let the porcelain paste proliferate
in feud with my skin - irritate
meeting the eye automated liquid strokes
the rest, repetitive pokes from powder brush thorns
it’s time to eat and here I dread the sickly impulse
yet Man Ray-style montages of avid flavour
had occupied my time today, like most.
Is this day one wherein I starve
or be manically engrossed in anything dry or paste-like?
texture required to keep my thoughts from gulps
breaching waistline. I choose to not eat today.
I’ll let the worried glances round the table simmer
I prefer it this way. Staying true to what I deserve –
nothing
but the hopeful image of a body
bones as sharp and clear cut as the hourglass curves
when the wholeness of living empty can finally sit beneath my skin.
(Artwork 'Self Portrait' by Jaeda DeWalt)