Monthly Archives: November 2016

anorexia, Bipolar Disorder, bulimia, identity

Hold Me

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i feel depressed confused LOST in between words in between images spinning not stopping faster and faster falling swinging between extremes unbalanced sick wordless caught trapped at the point that isn’t no shape no outline my body has no form

THERE ARE NO PICTURES THE SIZE OF MY STOMACH

my thighs i don’t see i don’t know what I look like I see a STRANGER look back at me in photographs in the mirror and i am always EXTREME

fat or thin good bad judgments rein me in tie me

it’s overwhelming the importance of the imaginary body i keep in reserve for myself

no worth NOT FITTING the image has distinct BOUNDARIES where my stomach my mind my thoughts my words should end except that I DON’T END

anywhere but stretch out across and through space my stomach fills the mirror i feel like an enormous expanse of flesh i’m not fat i don’t end

i am FORMLESS

faceless even though I know some people can see the outline of my body my words thoughts with ends but I can never bring those boundaries in to

HOLD ME

in place so I stay out of balance AFRAID OF THE HAZY SPACE IN BETWEEN

the picture of me I want is defined one-sided at one end away from center and NEVER small enough

that is the ideal me the one that i hold onto but can never slow down enough to touch always spinning around and farther away seeing myself in the mirror at the OTHER side

LARGE NOISY INTRUSIVE

seeing through to the fantasy of being so small so defined held in place I UNRAVEL

wrap my words around myself

identity

Everything My Dad Taught Me to Be

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Again and again I return to the same space,

The same words eating me up from the inside,

The same lack of self.

 

I forget who I am.

I forget to believe in myself.

I forget what it means to be alive after all of this.

I forget who I am past the size of my thighs,

As though my thighs could sum up my existence and identity.

As though the shape of my body could  fill my life with meaning.

 

And I feel so insecure, so unsure of who I am or who I am becoming.

I feel lost and out of place as I have for so many years,

And yet so close;

Everyday a little closer to who I may become.

 

I’m scared that I’m not living up to the person I always imagined I’d become,

As though there were some sort of rush,

As though anything could ever be enough.

 

And it’s everything my dad taught me to be.

identity, pop culture

Chameleon

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sometimes i lose track of myself between the images,
the pages of magazines,
the flickering rectangles of film,
the point where sounds blend together.

i try to squeeze my way through this space
without leaving myself behind.

i don’t want to be moulded after another.

but i am
caught in the dichotomy between self and other
without a boundary that i can touch.
i can’t even hold myself together without
words and culture to wrap around me.

colorfully, fashionably hidden
like a chameleon.

1998