Parentheses Between Lies

You are sick. You’re not sure with what (yes you do) so you go to the doctor. The nice nurse takes you in the back, checks your vitals, takes a weight. Depending on what kind of day you’re having you either stare obsessively at the number on the scale or look resolutely away. The doctor enters the exam room, notes down all your symptoms. Finally they set your chart aside, look you in the eyes. ‘You are very sick’, they state, ‘if this continues there could be serious damage to your health’. They proceed to list some of the more severe outcomes: substantial bone density loss leading to early onset osteoporosis, body muscle being eaten away – muscle that includes the kidneys, brain and heart, and heart issues. “You could”, the doc goes on to say, “Fall asleep one night and never wake up. Or drop dead from a heart attack in the middle of crossing a crowded street”.

 You’re scared (petrified), understandably so, and ask the doctor about a cure. “Eat”, is their reply, “and not just fruits and vegetables. High protein is important and a lot of desserts. Initially you’re excited (so excited). I mean who doesn’t want to be told – by a doctor no less – to eat more ‘unhealthy’ foods. You leave the office, heading for home you make a quick stop at the grocery store. You grab a basket and pile it high with yogurts and peanut butter and your favorite cookies. Back at home, you take special care to put everything away, almost like it’s a ritual (your deep mind knows it is). Finally, the moment has come; you reach for your favorite plate, split open the papery package, and pull out a cookie. You set the remaining cookies in the cupboard for later then, turn to eat.

 Except you can’t. You stand by the counter. You stare at the plate. The cookie looks amazing; as big as your palm, thick, a bit of a crunch round its edges but soft and chewy closer to the middle. Chocolate chunks galore sprout from all surfaces and you know – from experience – that no other can best it in taste. Yet you can’t bring yourself to take a single bite, not even the edge of that chunk of chocolate sticking up higher than all the others.

 More time passes, minutes or possibly hours, and you ultimately decide that you just don’t feel like eating a cookie right now (a lie). You wrap it up carefully, put it back with the others. Decision made, you devote yourself to easier actions like jumping out of a plane or running barefoot across shards of glass. You’ll eat the cookie later, after you’ve earned the right to do so (you don’t need to earn it).

You never do. It never seems like the right time (it’s always the right time). After a few days you throw all of the treats into the dumpster. After all, you don’t really deserve them (yes you do) and you were probably misremembering how delicious they were (you’re not). The yogurts you bought too disappear, only down the sink drain instead of your throat. The peanut butter is saved, but you’re only allowed it once a week and only after you’ve exercised an entire day and not swallowed any food – or water come to that.

You recall, almost hourly, what the doctor told you. It does make you nervous, truly, because you love your life. You don’t want to die. There are nights you lie in bed for hours afraid to fall asleep, so worried you are that your heart will decide it has had enough and simply stop forever. The fear eats away at your already starved stomach.

The terror always fades in the morning (no, just hides). It’s replaced by dancing elation because you have felt a fluttering of heart pain or spotted a blue glimmer of veins shining through too thin skin. You shouldn’t be able to see those veins or glimpse bones protruding where they weren’t before. You know it’s bad (so bad), but you can’t help but feel a sick, twistful glee. Your body is crumbling. You might have a heart attack. Both are good things (both are terrible).

Some people notice but you discount their comments, evade all questions. You respond; half-lies and sliced-truths tumbling out of your mouth in such chaotic confusion you’re able to refocus their gaze, change what they see. You laugh at this victory and decide to skip your weekly peanut butter in celebration. You are in control, you are shrinking, you are winning (you are dying).

The day comes though when you’re not given a choice. You’re so weak you can’t think straight and you can barely rise from bed to workout (you shouldn’t, your body needs to rest). Someone comes and suddenly it’s no longer just the doctor who knows the truth. Suddenly, another’s strength overpowers your own (finally). You’re forced into a cage (you step into a car) and driven to a dungeon (hospital). Strange people (doctors, nurses) are talking to you, poking and prodding in all the wrong places of your mind. They say they want to help you get better; you tell them they’re nothing but deceptions (they’re not, they are good). They have you sit at a table and set a plate in front of you. A single chocolate chip cookie rests on top. It’s different from the first but still looks incredible, you can almost feel the crumbles melting in your mouth.

 The strange people speak, “You have to eat this. You have to choose to fight” (you’ve known this all along).

“This is dumb”, you yell, “I’m perfectly fine and eating a stupid cookie isn’t going to prove anything. Besides, even if I was sick, I wouldn't want to get better” (false, you have never been more scared). You would shove the plate off the table but you just don't have the energy.

 The people are used to this. They have seen the parentheses between your lies, have heard the suppressed wishes in your heart. They wait. More time passes, minutes become hours. You’re tired and so full of terror it’s hard to transform feelings into thought. That is when it happens. That is when you realize how sick you have become (yes). It wasn’t the yellow brick road you followed; it was a rabbit hole and it dropped you straight into hell (Yes). You decide to stop listening to the evil voice in your head and instead pay attention to the words of your heart (YES!). You reach out your hand. Each finger trembling, from fear or anticipation? (both) You pick up the cookie, bring it to your lips and take a bite. It tastes incredible (it tastes like freedom).

~~~

I started writing this last year. I was at the height a fairly serious rough patch and writing always helped, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to get words to form themselves into the appropriate order.  I took a break and life began to smooth out, but I always intended to finish. An idea came to me recently. A way to reframe this whole piece entirely and I returned to it with new vigor. The words came easy this time. For those who’ve read the first post I shared about my disorder, you’ll know this is not a chronologically exact account of what happened. However, on a deeper level it is just as real and true as anything else I’ve ever written.

~*~*~

Blue Butterflies

What this is, and where it came from, I cannot say exactly. I did just spend 516 pages living in Bordertown and I believe my mind was a bit overwhelmed with the wish and wash of the magic that breathes life into those city streets. Either that or a bit of the Mad Red River water was slipped into my own tea just before I sat down to write last night.

~*~*~  

I saw butterflies today.

Blue ones.

Forget-me-not sapphires that sparked against the sun like diamonds on fire.

Did you know that faeries live in shadows?

Crazy I am not; though I've no doubt I it. The way people sick with sin have no song. Yet let me assure you I am perfectly sane; I’ve simply been sung from the stars. It is their violet light what allows me to see the metal shapes in the glooms; the dark eyes glimmering like crystals of madness.

Iron heart, iron cold, iron soul. The very air is iron, poisoning their homes. It is why they shrink away from all but blackened gray. Why they cling so close to the nightmares they don't yet know they have become. They do not see, cannot realize; even silver glass has forsaken them. They are the twisted terrors now. A song has shattered in it’s flight.

Oh, sing me into sunbeams and falling tears to crystal drums. The very air’s a porcelain heartbeat resounding with an iron thrum. I pray each night for madness. Insanity’s cooling balm would bring such sweet relief against the fears what be burning to ash my heart. Instead, I’m cursed inside a cerulean cacophony of truth, refusing naught but flawless understanding to enter into my consciousness.

I hear the crickets, taste their magic thoughts. Echoes of Efland come to life and I catch each one.

Stolen iron's being sent to slay my song and I sense battle will breed this night.

I am not worried. I have prepared. Snowflake pearls kiss my toes and I rejoice,  

I saw butterflies today.

~*~*~

Some Kind of FairyTale

I read a book yesterday; 'Some Kind of FairyTale' by Graham Joyce. Entranced I was, ensnared by the mystery and possibility of magic. Through the words on it's pages came this poem.

~*~*~*~

Are there faeries in the shadows
A light to cross the candles wane
The land is full of mist and shadows
I'll not see you again

See there were bluebells full of whispers
Fields of light and lakes on fire
Cherries blossomed gold and wicked
I have become a faerie child

Oh, but promise that you'll wait for me
Give no embrace to others arms
For I will fight and cry and bleed
I'll find some way back to your heart

~*~*~*~

Sunday Poem

A simple Sunday poem

            ~*~*~*~

I watch the sunshine birds,
through wisp of coffee steam.
Their tiny beaks jab, jabbing.
     Little spots of happiness
     trickling down their throats
Then they flit away without the
grace to give notice or
whisper of their plans.
     Unbridled freedom in each
     bone of their wings
Below them lay seeds, enough
have dropped to grow a garden
of flowers and lost dreams
    each once glittered with hope
    now they're discarded, forgotten


           ~*~*~*~

A Monster's Song

Fenrir, the most feared wolf of Norse mythology. His father was Loki, God of Chaos, and his mother the giantess Angrboda. Born with the threat of evil on his breath and the gift of limitless growth in his limbs; the gods feared what he'd become. Through trickery and the assistance of dwarves, the gods bound him with a magical chain made of the sound of cat's footesteps, the beard of a woman, a breath of a fish, sinews of a bear, a birds spit, and the roots of a mountain. Chained to an island rock the gods left Fenrir, and for many hundreds of years he endured nothing but misery.

But nothing lasts forever, and at last the prophecy of Ragnarok rang true and Fenrir broke free.

I saw Fenrir recently. He was fierce, horrible and beautiful. I asked him his thoughts, seized with an unquenchable desire to know what went on inside his mind. He granted my wish; shared his darkness encased in a poem, then was gone.

~~~

Devour, death, destroy.  Deliver naught but despair. 

Humanity's chains have held me too long.

Rip through them. Rip through teeth, flesh, bone. Sift blood to my soul. Taste death.
They will not see me coming, I'm a ghost inside clouds,
Gnashing teeth among waves, reckless claws in the wind.  I am shapeless 'till the last.
Time; roar, lunge from the shadows; darkness; twist all into chaos.
Pouring blood will reign.
They will hear me first. Calling. Howling. Praying.
But not to the moon, crying it's pathetic pearls.
I'll turn that moon red by the time I've done.
Cause the stars to fall, drown their light in fields of lava.
Kill them all. End everything.
Death, destroy, demolish, destruction. Blood, always blood.
Roll in it, soak my heart, turn my thoughts red, and only when the moon shares that violent color,
will I lift my head and sing it's song.
Tear, through life. Shred, crush bones. Make them scream for mercy.Turn those screams into
poems.
Open maw; swallow life; consume...Him.
Revenge is power, sweetened by Thunder's blood.

Wild, unhinged, unfettered
Turn the world red.
Set fire to the blood.
Set fire to sun.
Burn it all down.

~~~~

My (not so) Merry Christmas

This morning, as I followed my normal random path of thoughts; one led me down a side trail that resulted in this post. It was written quickly so the writing might be stilted and choppy. It is also without much read through or editing, so please forgive any glaring errors.

~~~

                      "In a world were everyone wears a mask, it is a privilege to see a soul'.

My thought this morning revolved around the pressure, ever growing, put on individuals to always have this perfect, happy life. To never be without control. To refuse to break under pressure or, if we do, to never, ever, for any reason show it. We live in a world wear a mask is required. I am sick of that rule. I am going to break it. So here is a snapshot of life for me today.

This has not been my happiest of holiday seasons. As the days have passed, screaming unapologetically towards Christmas, I've grown increasingly homesick. I am not sure if it's the difficult year I've had or my nephews or something else entirely, but the absence of Alaska and family has never been this hard. My eating disorder did a rather decent job of kicking my but the second half of November/first part of December. The last week an half has been better, though that always brings it's own set of issues. I saw the doctor a couple weeks back and found out I had pretty low iron levels. It brought relief, of a kind, to know the bone deep exhaustion I'd been feeling of late had an explanation. I started an iron supplement got a slight, but noticeable, uptick in energy. I hope that only continues. Work has been crazy, but I've adopted a routine of caring one day and then not letting it get to me the next. It also helps to remind myself that, compared to the responsibilities/stresses of my co-workers, my job is a cakewalk. This helps to curb my inner complaints. I've been filled with dreams and plans for the future, but an inability to immediately act on them, leaves me feeling stuck, stifled. I, of course, waited until the last minute to do Christmas shopping and no one will get their gifts on Monday, leaving me to feel like a horrible daughter/sister/friend etc.... Money is tight, more so than usual.

The purpose of sharing those things isn't to generate sympathy or pity. It was done to rip off the perfect mask of lies. It's to say that this won't be my happiest of Christmases and that's ok. Not every day is a good one, so too with holidays. That is life.

I know there are others, people with whom I interact almost daily, who are dealing with heartaches much greater than my own. And I know that at least a few of those people feel guilt over their lack of holiday spirit, try to hide the feeling they are crumbling. If any of them read these words, I hope they are able to glean from them their own strength to set fire to that guilt and rip off their own pain filled masks. It is ok to feel sad, to be witness to failure, to not love every second of your life.

~~~

I worked hard to create happiness today. I smiled at the sight of Faelina quivering with trepidatious rage at birds skittering just outside my window. I could almost taste, her desire to break free, to attack. I started re-reading (something I never let myself do) one of my most favorite books, The King of Elfland's Daughter. I swear it is one of the most beautifully written books ever to exist. I went to the movies, finding fair entertainment for a couple hours. I decided on a walk and was graced with one of the most stunning mountain sights I'd seen in a long while. (Thank you universe for putting that thought in my head when you did).  I listened to music I loved, loudly, blurring the lines of where the music stopped and I began. I sneaked into Inspirations front door, found a new creative writing project. I deliberated over, decided upon, the word which will be my theme for 2018. I stepped through the doors of my favorite store Barnes&Noble. I sit now in their cafe, sipping coffee and typing away. I am fairly certain that when I leave this place, it will be with a few new books in tow (thanks to the gift card I've been saving!). I know I have a warm home to return to. And in that home is a small Christmas tree, sparkling with lights, and presents tucked beneath it's branches. Now some of those presents are the ones I didn't get in time to send, but others are from family and friends. People who love me. I have much to be grateful for. Today was a surprisingly good day. I have hopes that tomorrow will be another. If it isn't though that is ok. That is life.

~~~

I close with a request...plea...call it what you will. Don't lock yourself inside a world of lies and false perfection. Rip off your own masks. Shine on the happy days but don't be afraid to let your tears show on the bad ones. Because you need them both, you need all emotions. Life is a breath of magic, one full of delightful beauty and devastating tragedy. Blink one away and you'll never be able to fly with the other. So live, fully, whatever that may bring.

~~~~

Poem

Make of this poem what you will. I give no explanation for it, save that it was sparked by words I heard this past week. It's not particularly graceful but, most times, neither is life.

~~~~

They want to be invisible

A winter star that’s never seen
Or blow away into the ether

Dandelion wisps lost to the wind

They dream only of the shadows

Long to walk those halls as ghosts

To at last become the hauntings

That have so destroyed their world

They’ll wake to that place someday

Perhaps sooner than they think

First fading into mist, then feathers

Then lost forever to the wind

~~~~