At Least

Having been too busy yesterday to write much or to post anything, I want to write a lot today and maybe even post multiple times (this is your warning!). This poem was partially inspired by Brian’s prompt about “fleeting beauty” from last week. Also, it’s been hard because I’ve been eating a lot this week and ate a ton yesterday at my cousin’s wedding (how can you resist CAKE???).  I hate to admit it, but the eating-disorder “voice” never really goes away…

One thing that I notice when I do eat more is, at Sunday Mass, I actually sing better, and my voice is stronger. 🙂 That makes me happy.

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At least I could sing strongly.
There’s a certain zest for life
That’s missing when you won’t eat
Wedding cake, or what
Your body really needs.

There’s a certain beauty
That doesn’t fade.

“At least” I could sing strongly?
That’s everything.

 

Click here to join in the Weekend Writing Prompt.

 

Writing that felt gut-wrenching. Pun intended. Eating disorders are very symbolic. 🙂 Okay, have a good day, all.

Something Inevitable

Today’s challenge for DVerse Poetics is to write on the topic of one or more of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). I’ll try not to focus on Depression, for once. 🙂 This seems to be quite a challenge for me, but as a writer, I am probably capable of it. The picture is one I took last year.

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I’ve been grieving for a long time. At 19 years old, an eating disorder took over my life, almost took my life. Then I spent 4 years recovering. Those are 4 years I’m never going to get back, 4 years when the rest of my peers graduated from college and got jobs, maybe even started families. I feel behind, like I’ll never catch up. Covid didn’t help anything — thanks to that, life became even more on hold. All my life seems to be made up of recovering from previous life.

I used to wonder how I developed an eating disorder in the first place. Now, after having done a ton of therapy and realizing the commonalities between me and other sufferers, I am more surprised that it didn’t happen earlier.

I’ve been briefly in the “acceptance” stage, believing that God has something else for me, that God is writing a beautiful story. Maybe He is, but that doesn’t stop me from stalking over to the “anger” stage. With a birthday coming up in only 6 weeks, I am seeing even more starkly what is lost and finding fewer and fewer ways to replace it.

“growth in everything?” —
see skeletal arms reaching,
a withered fig tree

Well, that was sadder than I intended. I failed my self-imposed “try not to cry” challenge.

5 Answers

The prompt for day 18 is to “write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.” Why don’t you leave a comment saying what you think the question is? This poem does not provide an exhaustive list of answers, by the way; there are a hell of a lot more (pun intended 😀 ).

A Vase with a Different Meaning

Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net has to do with writing “a story about the body.” It feels too triggering to hang out in that space today, and the prompt is optional, anyway. 🙂 That’s why I am, instead, sharing my response to Sadje’s WDYS challenge #127. Like yesterday’s post, it has to do with flowers:

So I looked up tulip symbolism, of course! 😀

Then I wrote:

I.
vase of red tulips
left on steps — unrequited
should have been yellow

II.

vase of
simple tulips
belies passionate love —
but left alone on steps of stone
smolder

There might be more poems to come!

Life is still a lot like baking, isn’t it?

Reposting this poem from early March 5 years ago for Fandango’s Flashback Friday and linking with DVerse Open Link. I still relate to this (probably about 10 times more than when I wrote it) and hope to be able to take my own advice and see life like this, even when it feels nasty, and it seems like you’re at rock bottom (and then you realize that rock bottom has a basement…). One hopes that the metaphorical cake that will eventually be baked will NOT taste nasty! In the meantime, I might eat some literal cake to make myself extra cheerful. 🙂 Just kidding but also not.

what doesn’t kill you

For One-Liner Wednesday, I have another line from one of my own poems today (😅), because I am really feeling it:

What doesn’t kill you makes you
Strongly desire to sleep a lot
Longer.

It’s from this poem, written about a year ago and posted 6 months ago (feel free to follow the link 🙂). Not to be overdramatic, but I feel like, even though I’ve technically survived a lot, it still pretty much broke me. I’ve lost about 4 years of my life, plus the past 2 years of covid (and covid-related restrictions), which hasn’t helped anything. 

I’ll post a happier poem later today! 😊

Why I Write in a Daily Journal

Today’s JusJoJan prompt is “Journal,” and the décima challenge is to use “Hush” in one of the A rhyme lines. Writing Wednesday: Letter. FOWC: Variation. MVB: Stolen. I’m really glad to have been able to finish and share this one because I have been really tired today.

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The crazy thoughts begin to hush —
Those variations of the day
That I hope my prayers will allay,
Once the words can to paper rush.

The tension melts like snow to slush
With every letter on the lines,
Pain freed from the body’s confines.
Some stolen peace is then restored
With honesty and feelings poured —
Reflected in tears, the sun shines.

The Pit of Your Stomach

“Shame weighs a thousand pounds.”

(first line of my poem)

Shame weighs a thousand pounds.
You try to take it out
On your body but that just
Makes it press more heavily.
Suffocating.
Chaining.
A stone in the pit of your stomach
Drags you down to dark depths
Where you wait for drowning
To finally claim its victim.

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For One-Liner Wednesday, you’re probably not supposed to quote yourself, but I couldn’t find anything good this morning and also wanted to share that poem. Posting makes me feel a bit lighter.

Happy Birthday

For DVerse Poetics, we’re writing about food. Anyone who regularly reads this blog knows this topic can be quite heavy for me. Even if you’re “recovered” from an eating disorder, it never really leaves you. The topic of food can also be fun, but I went the “heavy” route because this poem wanted to be written. Not sure if this is a “good” poem, but I put my heart (and my painfully-visceral feelings) into it, so here goes. Linked with JusJoJan day 11 as well.

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In the back of my mind…

In the beginning of our stream-of-consciousness Saturday post, we must have the words “In the…” What comes after that? I’m not sure. It’s past dinnertime, and I still haven’t written any poems at all today. Well, 2 lines of an acrostic, and 1.5 lines of another poem (not sure what form it will be).

In the back of my mind,
There is probably something
I still have left to say —
Something which one day
Was buried, yet buried alive.
Maybe that’s why
Anxiety won’t quite leave me,
Why it lives in my body —
It has more to say.

I was hoping to not write about anxiety / problems, but that’s what came out. At least I have actually written a whole poem today, finally.