face first on the ground

Sometimes the words wont come. the pain is so deep so dense that the words can't get through. then sometimes the pain manifests itself in the words. i sit down and words that dont even seem like they are coming from me flow out. like the disease is writing its own story and i dont even really need to be there. sometimes the pain writes the story, sometimes the pain blocks the story, and when i sit down i dont know which is going to happen. I have icredubly high standards for writers. i need to be pulled in, i need to feel like im there, feel the pain and the emotion like its my own memory. it is not enough for you to tell me your story you must make me feel your story, live your story, for 200 pages or 8 hours, or with the best writers for days and years to come. and if the story coming out of my head isnt enough then its hard to keep writing it- even just for prosperity's sake. if i can't make you feel the pain in whatever capacity you have to feel it then the story's not worth telling.

I abused my body quite a bit yesterday. slapped and scratched and threw my body at will. most of us past the age of 6 no longer know the feeling of throwing ourselves onto the ground. it is not a valid option in the adult world. you get fired or your girlfriend breaks up with you, you cannot fling yourself onto the pavement in a tantrum against higher powers if you believe in them, or the person causing the pain if they are in front of you. we use words, we use tears, some of us use strength, and some of us use distance, and some of use drugs which is in effect using distance i think. a distance from the person, a distance from ourselves. but none of us with any mental stability chooses to react by throwing ourselves face first onto the ground and failing our arms in a physical performance of our unhappiness at a situation. save a parent/best friend/child being killed suddenly or your house burning down. perhaps in that situation it is because there is no person to talk to, to fight, to plead with to change the situation. there is only pain, loss and a deep and unwilling acceptance. there is no need to save face when the situation is finite, unchangeable in the darkest sense of it. there are things you do not get over- you just get through. and sometimes getting through requires letting go of everything but the pain. stop fighting, stop pleading, stop talking yourself through it and just expereince the rawness of emotion. and if the pain is deep enough the dispair and the fear powerful enough it can throw you face first onto the tiled bathroom floor.
once yesterday i slid to the floor sobbing, my legs buckling against the gravity of the dispair. grasping for breathe i slumped agianst the refridgerator and the pain just pulled me down. onto the grimy kitchen floor where i lay in a puddle with the stains of spilled juices and dropped grapes and clung to myself. when the sobs slowed enough for my lungs to get air again i mustered the strength to lift my upper body off the ground and prop it against the refridgerator. wet and sticky my face streamed with tears and snot and grime i hugged my knees and screamed in whispers. opening my mouth like a concrete lion. roaring and raging in silence against and invisible opponent.
twice yesterday the pain threw me to the ground. the first time was soon after getting up, shortly after mike left for work. i stood in the dining room shoveling slice after bloated slice of sweet bread into my mouth. i ate half a loaf with more butter than necessary for a dozen people to butter a dozen rolls slathered in thick messy lines across each of the increasing larger slices. my mother made me the bread. it was sweet and loving of her, she went out of her way to make it healthy and vegan for me. and here i was desecrating her gift with not only gross amounts of butter but the knowledge that i was eating it just to throw it up. it wasnt her fault and it wasnt the bread, it was the day, it was me, the bread was just there. but the knowledge that this bread like so many other thoughtful gifts from loved ones meant only for my nurishment and enjoyment have met this same fate makes me feel horrible and ungrateful and unworthy of ever getting gifts again. not taking the time to savor it and the love put into it but shoving it in my mouth and then forcing it out of my body. it didnt want to come up. sometimes it just doesnt. sometimes my body clings to the nurishment with all it can. and i get angrier and rougher. i drank glassful after glassful of water and then threw up mostly water and hissed at myself in demonic sounding whispers to get some actual fucking food up with it already. i washed off the wrong end of a toothbrush and tried a trick i've heard whispered throughout eating disorder wards. i didnt understand it then and i dont understand it now. your throat is curved and a toothbrush is so rigidly straight. it didnt work but i also didnt try that hard. i thought about going downstairs and getting a straw. we have a box of the neon bendy kind used at kids birthday parties. i looked down at my hand covered in mucus and bits of food, shoved it back into my throat, and choking myself looked down into the compiled dirtiness of a toilet obviously belonging to a bulimic- the black mold crusted in areas where normal toilets only see water. i rested my head against my forearm and contemplated hitting bottom. how much part of me really is trying to make that happen. create a bottom so that we can finally hit it and then start crawling out. i do not know how to react to this- i only know that it is what i am doing. at least part of me and that i do not know how bad that bottom could possibly be. when i throw up whether other people are home or not i leave the faucet running. aside from creating a noise more pleasant than my heaves and choking it gives me a place to both clean and lubricate my fingers. i was holding my hand under the sink yesterday the first time i was thrown to the ground. as i moved my fingers under the running water i watched as the main 2 arteries on my wrist vividly danced and jutted out from my forearm. i saw myself slitting them, saw the blood spewwing out so violent that the image litterally knocked me off balance. the fear, the haunting realism, the knowledge of what part of me is capable of doing to the rest of me all merged like a giant hand and swatted me to the tiled floor. i lay huddling in a ball, shaking and sobbing for what could have been 2 mins or 20. when i finally stand i watch the girl in mirror for a long while- her lips quiver, her eyes shake, she looks rabid and pathetic.
the second time was that afternoon shortly after i managed to pull myself off of the kitchen floor where i had slid down in despair. i dragged myself off the floor, out of the kitchen, and into a chair in the dining room where i slowly and and with as much concentration as i could muster tried to im mike at work. i sat with a plate of mushrooms which i had somehow managed to cook in between the sobbing and the clinging and the kitchen floor. now in between the sobbing and the grasping for breathe i tried to get a single mushroom piece into my mouth and tell mike that the day is kicking my ass. he asks how my day was and i say just that- its kicking my ass today. he makes a lame joke, changes the subject a bit, tries i think to assess how bad it really is. and i stare at the computer and think how far away he is. from this from me. from actually getting it. how far i am from being able to explain. how 'its kicking my ass today' is the closest i can come to asking for help. how im afraid of bothering him at work, bothering him at all. worrying him, scaring him, losing him. how much it hurts, how scared i am, and how all i can say is 'its kicking my ass today'. and suddenly im off the chair and im on the ground. on my knees, back hunched forehead plastered against the wooden floor, teardrops mingling with dust bunnies. i cant breathe cant stop cant move save the shaking rocking of my sobbing body as it grasps for air. i eventally drop to my side fetal position my eyeline right where the wall meets the floor staring at the dust gathered there. i think its dirty, its disgusting, im disgusting. by my knees is a cabinet with mikes tools. i open it to look for an exact knife. i dont find one and luckily dont contemplate for too long the abuse that could be done with any of the other tools which im sure would work in a pinch. for some reason an exacto knife is the only thing that will do. clean and skinny and sharp. its the only thing i want. not a saw or hammer or sharp screw which are all there but not right. i will myself to close the door lean against it instead. mike wouldnt like this. this would make mike really sad. i weigh the options, which would make him sadder- which makes him more likely to leave me. disrupt his day, show him a girlfriend who is needy and scared and helpless or have him come home to the blood. or more realistically the scab. this is me getting through it. the cutting is me getting through it in the only one i can sometimes. but its me getting through it. by myself. and isnt that what everyone wants? for me to be able to stand up for myself, fight for myself, get through it without disrupting anyone else? leaning on that door i felt exactly like i felt at 16. at 16 i would have done it. done whatever i needed to get through it. its 12 years later and its the only fight ive won against this disease. its the only thing i can say i dont do any more. and still i dont really understand why winning that fight is a win. why avoiding this one specific act of self hatred makes me any better off. i know where i want the cut to be. how long, how deep. i see it on my arm and i whisper 'he would never forgive you'. by now the tears have calmed breathing comes easier. i pick myself up, sit down at the computer and type ' you know i normally try to get through this shit by myself but if you could come home anytime soon i could really use some help.' and he talks me through it like he always does, whether he knows he is or not. and he gets home as soon as he can and he hugs me and he holds me and tells me stupid things so i forget. forget that i found box cutters and ran the shiny blade of one against my skin. imagined pressing down. stared at the way my artery stands out so high and separate. imagined a tiny quick slit. a nip really. just for the blood. scared my self with the intensity of the thought. threw it down. closed the drawer. repeating to myself over and over- he would never forgive you.