War is Over?

It’s a daunting time, Christmas. Even more New Years

I remember once I used to set goals and reflect

But with each day feeling like a new country (if not a new planet)

I wonder how far any change can really go

I want so much

But then I look back at the planet I inhabited before. Before that

I have changed- with or without the year, months and days since that time

I really just want time

Peace. So often I dream of peace

It doesn’t have to be psychedelically coloured

Or the anarchy I once believed would fall without that order I had

It doesn’t have to be big, or grand

I often just think of a chair by a window in a quiet house

Where I can look outside if I want

I don’t know if this war is totally fought. Most days minor skirmishes still take place, but I know I don’t want to be recovered from an eating disorder. I just want to move forward. A-Rex will always sit in that past (I thank him for the lessons)

But I will be me without labels to say what I was or am

In the end I don’t want a “New Year new you”

To say that says I see no value in the me I am

And I do value that vessel. For as I’ve traveled from planet to planet

Battle to battle, Me has been my vessel of transport

It’s not so bad to have a constant

What does one do in a time of peace?

I guess it’s time to find out

Hope Is A Thing With Feathers

Hope is a thing with feathers, they say

I wonder why?

I’d hope it would not fly away

When everything else were lost

Everything seems to be changing irreparably lately

I don’t know about Simon because he won’t speak

But I’d desperately like to know

What to take. And what to leave behind. With him it seems there is a lock. He will not let me in. I wonder if he is afraid I would bring too much with me for a fresh start?

But in all reality I am not the same as I was. I don’t think that I could be

I don’t believe at all that I can’t do this alone. I think in the past, of all the times I have scraped through. Part of that person who made it is me, but I have probably changed since then. I don’t think it is important to know exactly where I want to be. I think the value is in knowing it is not here.

I was talking to a colleague at work today about the difference between a mistake and failure. Her take on it was that a mistake is something that you realise, and because of this can correct.

A failure is never having realised you were wrong in the first place. I think I have made both. We probably all have. Today all I could think of were reasons for Simon to leave me behind

I talk too much

I tell too much

I collect too much

But I want so much to keep moving forward and in reality, there are things I feel I am responsible for- like our pets- and for these I need to make sure the right decision is made. But there are things I can also gladly leave

Sorting through our house I find so many extra things I’ve been getting claustrophobic. Many of these can and will be shed (like the parts of me I no longer want to be). For things I want to get back to- reading, sewing, gardening- I think I need to start simply, and with a lot less clutter. I can’t promise I won’t just build a nest just as big. But I want to try. How often we do this as we don’t even notice the thing we are not using any more…

As I walked home from work today I saw twisted feathers on the grass

Then a chicken with a broken neck

It seems something was out hunting last night. Hope is not all things with feathers; many are just as unlucky as we are

Feathers also do not give automatic rights to flight

What you have is not an automatic right to being able to do

Not everything can

But with what I have, I will always try. I don’t think I’m programmed to give in. That doesn’t guarantee success either, but it does mean possible

Feather

I long for something

As soft as a feather

A brush on the cheek

A slight warmth

A handhold

Not this frightening storm

Simon told me we need some time apart

On Christmas Eve

He got one of the jobs he applied for in Sydney

And goes for an interview for another in just over a week

I want to scream

Cry

Tell him every feeling for him sitting in my heart

As they have these past few years

I couldn’t tell him

Not like I had before

I’m so tired

It feels like only fighting comes, for all the battles I’ve already fought

I want to be me again

A feather, free from the wind

To walk when I want to

Sleep without fear

To love and hold hope

I want to be what I was

But more

Almost most of all I want my best friend back…

Simon

Perhaps we say

When this storm has passed for us both

 

 

Pieces of Me

So much is changing

And I am not the same either

I am sorting through a lot of feelings

Belongings

Beliefs

A-Rex is all of these things

And they say to leave her

I am numb. I have been for days

I have gained weight. It frightens me to look in the mirror

I am trying to gain the courage

Perhaps the view will help me leave this behind

Instead I wander in circles

I long to gain the confidence to walk away

Maybe I have, in many ways

Maybe all we are is pieces

No-Mans Land: How Can You?

I blend in

In most respects

Tick the boxes

Do what must be done to be

 

Functional

I pass for normal

Many times over

But inside I wander constantly on the edge of a terror and there is no rest.

Mental illness is like a constant sick RPG game where the enemy is always just out of reach

Their claws tear pieces away

I have been a healthy weight for months now. They call it restored

But rarely have I felt more damaged

I don’t see my doctor, and see my dietitian only bi-monthly. Simon says I look better this way

And I want to believe him but for hour upon hour

Most days I am not here

You might see me

Or who you think I am

But I am not entirely

And don’t know how to live with the weight of these feelings

Or myself. I feel disconnected from what I want

I cannot quite see a way to connect with it and be

Although like you

Or anyone else

I want to feel alive. I just don’t know how to want what they say is healthy

Or know for sure that I could not have completed it

At a lesser weight

Less excess

I get tired of these mind games

I know I need to survive

And with my neat ticked boxes

Like a false picket fence

I guess I can

But life is never that simple

I guess these pieces fighting at me

May be the pieces that brought me here

In truth

I’m not that neat or easy

Are you?

 

 

(State Without) Grace

Recovery, weight or otherwise

Is named as a place without

Numbers that matter

Fear

This state of never-ending eating

Greed

The screaming inside

But it isn’t any of that

I feel so constantly terrified

People say I’m better like this

But they don’t live with the constant jarring sensations

Fat folded within skin like pigs in blankets

My jeans rest heavily on my hips (and on my heart)

I’m trying to sit with these feelings

Even when they leave me shaking

And exhausted

But “recovering”

But FAT

There are good things

And I try to hold onto them, but whatever this state is

There is no grace in me