If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip.
children eating-disorders families
I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.
eating-disorders food
Do I want to die from the inside out or the outside in?
eating-disorders
Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March..........I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world...I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness...Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.I am thawing.
anorexia eating-disorders recovery
I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed sisterhood and daughterhood. Failed mirrors and scales and phone calls. Good thing I'm stable.
Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn't sick; I was strong.
I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy...
eating-disorders recovery
I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop.
The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare.
cutting eating-disorders
I wish I had cancer. I will burn in hell for that, but it's true.
I'm learning how to taste everything.
You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.
I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.
eating-disorders knitting
I don't just use yarn from a store. I buy old sweaters from consignment shops. The older the better, and unravel them. There are countries of women in this scarf/shawl/blanket. Soon it will be big enough to keep me warm.
blankets cold eating-disorders warm
I need to finish this scarf/shawl/blanket thing so I can start something for Emma- a hat, maybe, or a sweater for her stuffed elephant.
eating-disorders sisters