Maddie: Free
Hi there Margherita and warriors,
Thank you for your honesty. Your vulnerability is raw and real and I know it is helping lots of girls, because it has helped me.
I just left an anorexia inpatient recovery center, and have been doing a lot of writing and self-reflection. Here are a few poems for ya, publish them on your blog if they speak to you.
Also, please know that you are one of the most beautiful people. Body things are hard for girls like us, but please please please look in the mirror after you read this and look at all the lovely things about yourself. After being so used to looking at my reflection and criticizing, this is something that has helped me. It is amazing how different things seem from this lens.
Poem 1 (titled free) --> this describes my feelings after leaving the psychiatrists office with a diagnosis
free
it feels strange, wrong almost, to write the word in description of feelings in that moment
sheer panic, rage, entrapment, despair
the sense of a living something screaming, of ripping and tearing its claws down the middle of chest
awareness of red
a deep deep red
puffs of air spurt from lungs in waves of fury and hair is a cloud of thorns and salt water drips into eyes
burning
burning everywhere
burning everything
it started once
and never stopped
realization that the birds had not stopped singing
as ears had gone deaf
understanding that the pain was not yet waning
as body had gone numb
and eyes were seeing
mirages of an artificial mist
but in that hour
she was becoming less
as I was becoming greater
and the imagination of waning agony
for the first time was a thought
regardless of the fact
that it was all I could dream of
Poem 2 --> this is a conversation between me and my eating disorder eating disorder is italicized)
There is the empty feeling
of missing an unknown piece
And then comes that first moment of realizing
There is something wrong with me
It must be my legs
All noodly and small and light
Not like the pretty ones
So then I eat
Much more than most little girls can
But everything is the same
There is something wrong with me
Then one day I realize the things that feed me are too much,
and bad and wrong and not allowed any more
So l restrain them
Something is right suddenly
And with each day you are stronger
And better and fuller
And more comes with taking up less space
Then comes the fire
Scorching, blazing in the deepest shade of red
So I shrink again
And the emptiness fills me
The pain becomes the exchange
For what I have always wanted
Something is right suddenly
And with each day you are stronger
And better and fuller
And more comes with taking up less space
Eyes see black
I touch bone, the sharp corners and angles
that guide me through the dark
But things are only better
because there is less of me
and more of you
Maddie x