Thankyou

To the people who have come,

To the people who have stayed

 To the people who have held my hand

When I became so afraid. 

For the letters in the post

And texts to keep me in the loop

For the hours of phone calls when I felt so alone

And endless tags on Facebook. 

To every last person who saw me beneath the illness that tried to take me

For being there; remaining strong, for always offering me a shoulder to cry on

Thankyou for carrying me when I felt so tired

For holding me up when my strength had expired 

Thankyou for believing in me when hope dwindled through

Thankyou for being my sunshine when the future felt so blue. 

Everyday I grow stronger, 

Everyday I learn 

And I know I still have a road to travel, 

But I’ll get there in turn. 

And to the people that doubted me,

That gave up on me quick

You give me more drive, strength, determination

To prove you wrong, because I’ll make it. 

Mirror mirror

Mirror mirror on the wall

Do you ever tire of watching me fall

You play these games inside my head

You make me feel so repulsive I’d rather be dead. 

Mirror mirror on the wall

You bully me, put me down til I can barely crawl

You’ve caught me in a cycle of pressure, of failure and self hatred 

You trap me further in the world of anorexia you’ve created. 

Mirror mirror you hang there so innocently

Whispering remarks and sniggers so viciously 

You twist my vision, you blur my words

Mirror mirror you are my curse. 

Mirror mirror do you see what you do

You warp my reality 

This damage you reap you cannot undo

Mirror mirror you’re nothing but glass 

And yet the power you hold is so dangerously vast

Mirror mirror you make no sense 

You’ve stripped me of my confidence 

Everything you show me, more than just my reflection 

Its confirms my fears, my beliefs, it’s a warped deception 

Mirror mirror you narrate a story that goes beyond just an image

You started off so quiet and innocent, 

You’ve torn away more of my soul than I could have ever envisaged. 

Mirror mirror, why are you so cruel? 

Mirror mirror, why do you like to watch me fall? 

Mirror mirror you’ve entangled me in your web of criticism, self loathing and shame

Deep down I know that I’m worth more than what you show

So mirror mirror please, why won’t you let me go? 

I want to disappear.

I feel like I can’t breathe in this world. Like there is an immense pressure in every single direction and they’re all squeezing and contorting me into a whithering piece of nothingness. I don’t want an eating disorder, but right now I want to disappear. I want the pressure to stop and how do you ease a pressure other than to back away from it’s force? Don’t you see? Someone can only be forced at such a strength in all directions before they do shrink and shrink and shrink until their nothing. 

Grief - poem

Grief. 

One day you’re here, you are talking, joking and laughing,

The world seems at peace, birds singing and flying. 

The flowers all have colour

And the trees are rich with leaves 

The sky is the bluest of blues 

And you are here, just in reach. 

And the it all changed, so quick, in just a split second 

The world became so stormy, a new horizon beckoned. 

The colours, they dulled, fresh scents faded

A must, a fog rolled in, the peace was tainted. 

I don’t know how I lost you, when you said your final words 

I wander, if I had known they’d be your last, would I have held onto them so close? 

If I had known that the last time we spoke

Would be the last time id hear your voice,

Would I have picked the phone up and felt so happy, and eagerly rejoiced? 

If I had known the last time I got a letter in the post

With your immaculate handwriting

Would I have savoured the beautiful words a little longer

Seen how they hold such beauty and shining. 

If I had known the last time I’d seen you, would be the last time for good

Would I have ever stopped hugging you? 

Would I have tried harder, listened, understood? 

You were here one day, and gone the next

And all I have to hold are your letters, our memories

Of the late night chatters

When everyone else was asleep

The secret garden we laid in

Feeling so at peace. 

The stories you told me, the adventures you had travelled

The people you had met and the 

Wars you had battled. 

I have the voicemails you left me

When I didn’t reach the phone

And the parcels that lifted me

When I so badly missed home. 

I wrap myself in the blanket you sent me

Despite it being the warmest day of the year

With your comforting words ‘keep your heart warm my dear’. 

I know I couldn’t know, I couldn’t predict what happened

I can’t understand how one minute you are here and the next you have vanished. 

I attempt to console myself, in anyway you would’ve

But I am quick to realise, it’s a void I will never fill. 

People say grief, it lessens in time

You learn to hold onto the good memories only 

I’ll somehow create a manageable, less painful paradigm. 

But there is a chasm in my life, in my heart and soul

The reality that you are gone, I cannot control. 

If I could have just one more conversation,

One more hug, one more letter, one more word

Maybe it’d hurt less, id feel some kind of closure. 

But I know that’s not possible 

For if I got to be with you again, for one last show

I know, oh I know I would never let go. 

It’ll never be enough - poem

Anorexia stop lying 

It’ll never be enough

You’ll never be satisfied 

This time, I call your bluff. 

You can lie to me, trick me, pull me down your path

Only so many times before I stand up and say

Enough is enough. 

For seven long years I’ve fought the war

Against you and your allies 

Miss perfectionism, body dysmorphia,

And I see through your disguise 

The rose tinted glasses have been shattered on the ground

The calm and stability you float in front of my eyes

Has harshly run aground. 

I see you for all you’ve taken, 

Not only the time, the years,

But my soul. 

You tried to snatch me up, take me in

Well not anymore. 

I have all I need, my friends and familt

A team of people who genuinely care for me

And that’s more than you can claim in your pathetic fallacy.  

My emotions won’t kill me, 

But you trying to manage them will 

My routine will stay sound

As long as I continue to fight you, and not let myself become ill. 

You see you promise to help

But I see through your lies 

It’s time to part ways now

So here’s my final goodbye. 

Yes the pie is scary and the ice cream gives me the shakes

And a croissant might grow legs and chase me

The custard might erupt 

And all these things can seem so scary. 

But the biggest fear at all, above anything else

Is the reality that if I do not fight you now

You will take more of my life. 

So on that note, farewell. 

Dear anorexia, you’ve done it again - poem

6/1/19

Dear anorexia, you’ve done it again

You lied, you tricked me, you pretended to be my friend. 

You saw I was scared, vulnerable and lost

You watched my every move and planned to take me at any cost. 

It’s been 6 months since I made the move back home

It should’ve been filled with happy memories and so

Do you see what you’ve done, over again? 

Do you see the damage you reap, how you drive me insane. 

You started of with just a whisper, a nudge toward you and your ideas 

You were so quiet and calm, I believed you, 

It appears optimism is my weakness. 

You see I believed what you said, I believed I was in control, 

I thought I knew better this time

And that you could help console 

The fear I felt, how self conscious I was 

The chaos my head was in, 

With all the unfamiliarity and instability within. 

You weren’t anorexia, not then at least, 

You were the routine I craved and a familiar voice. 

And I can’t pinpoint when you changed, when you became so violent and abusive

I can’t tell you exactly when you started to call me stupid

And pathetic and worthless and a burden to all

And fat and disgusting and a failure to say the least 

And you got louder, deafening in my ears as you won the battle and the number decreased. 

And I should be happy because I’m doing what you say 

But don’t you see what actually happened? 

My will, my hope, my smile began to decay. 

You have filled my mind with meaningless numbers

And rituals and rules and do you see how it covers

Every thought and behaviour, all I say and do

Do you see how you’ve broken me

And so I sit here, trying to construe

Why, why me? What have I done? 

Haven’t I made it clear that

I want to live, and have fun. 

So anorexia, congratu-fucking-lations 

Because I’m your puppet again

Because I am unable to distinguish 

Where you begin and I end. 

You’ve reduced my self worth to the number on the scale

To my weight, my shape and my size 

And you see, anorexia, really it shouldn’t come as any surprise. 

Because you take, you take all you want

And who is left to pay? 

The poor little girl that you saw in dismay. 

You won this battle, that is for sure

But I promise you, you will not win the war. 

While you put up a battle inside of my head, 

I’m no longer clueless to you tactics and I see how you tread 

Quietly at times, then a thumping noise

But I will fight back, I will fight on

You will not beat me, no matter what,

I will go on. 

Relapse

‘You spent along time in the bathroom’ 

Said mum

‘I’m not feeling too good, my tummy hurts a lot and my hands feel numb’

I cast my eyes downward as I know it’s self inflicted 

I swear I am okay, and hope my mum will be uplifted. 

I’m doing okay I promise 

I need abit more space 

To prove to myself I can do this 

With not too much hast. 

I push them away again, I push everyone out

No one can know the cliff I have fallen off of, they can’t even doubt. 

‘You’ve been out a lot today fi, are you okay

I feel like I’ve barely seen you recently

Is there anything you want to say?’ 

No mum I promise, dad I am fine

A stab presses my stomach, for me lying is a crime. 

My therapist, dietician and psychiatrist 

Social workers and more

They know something doesn’t add up

But my deceit wins the war. 

I’m wrapped up in layers on layers 

Shaking by the fire 

Nothing will warm this empty house I live in

This so called body, draped in attire. 

I’m okay, I promise I’m managing on the whole

I have my blips and bad days but I’m not poorly anymore. 

My bedroom has become darker, the drawers are locked with secrets 

My pencil sharpeners aren’t one anymore

And the pills are my weakness. 

My journal entities are shorter 

The same few words over and recall

Of tiredness, emptiness and hopelessness

Of how I just cannot do it anymore. 

Don’t come too close - poem

Don’t come too close

I’m hiding for a reason 

Trying to protect my secret

Though its evolving to be treason 

I’m trying to help you

Stop putting you through pain

You see I have fallen so fast 

It seems my will power couldn’t refrain 

From the temptation of familiarity 

Of safety, stability and calm

And I am utterly clueless why;

After all these years of fighting the hard battle

I’m so caught under the charm 

Under the luring whispers

And convincing discussions

Tripping, more like falling with open arms 

Never remembering the full repercussions. 

You see I was doing so well

I was so utterly sound in the belief

That anorexia was part of my past

That the voice would finally give me some relief. 

The reality is so far off

It seems I’m not only caught under its cobweb of thought

But the web continues to thicken, to strengthen by the day

And I’m fighting, my god I fight to be free

But it exhausts me

And the web only gains in velocity. 

Rose tinted glasses led me back here

And now I’m sat in the true darkness of the beast 

The more I fight to be free

The louder the sniggering rings 

The noise of anorexia

Laughing, mocking, belittling

As it knows, it has me completely in its grips. 

I thought I was okay, I thought I was in control

I couldn’t tell you when I tumbled off the cliff edge,

Or when the aim became reality and the target shifted even further away

Tickling my finger tips, just out of reach

But I do know this, that this course of torment I never knowingly did enrol 

The harsh critique of anorexia is stronger than ever

I’m a control freak out of control.