Tuesday, May. 27, 2003/12:04 am

pieces

After a while everything just closes to a blank screen.

A tangled pause.

A shrill scream shot through the air and freeze framed.

A poster of distress, hopelessness.

The series of moments i've found myself hoping for a way out, anyway. The blink of scales, measuring tapes taught around thighs and wrists. Visions of the continuous binge/purge sessions i repeat as often as the tide of loneliness that sweeps over me. Every detail of this losing battle, every little thought, trigger or wound mounded together and rolled out infront of me on the pastry board.

The depression and force that binds me, writhers over my soul, my skin, through my veins. It's become dimmed to a constant numb, tingling sensation. Pushing your fist into a saucepan of boiling water. Biting your lip and shutting your eyes. Crashing, burning, hot, intense. Leave it limp in the clear and soon the pain will decend from your fingers and mark a sear of shock throughout your whole body.

I can't feel it anymore.

Scorching becomes freezing. Icy, frost bitten. Day becomes night. Not even one candle lit through the boarded up church.

I'm detatched from the world around me, the wire was cut long ago. Now i can't even find my way back to any sort of sane ground. The floor appears yellow and pink, up and down in shade and pattern. I hopscotch from one step to another with dilated beads under teary lashes.

Drifting out through an endless ocean, not sure how i'm keeping afloat. How my head is still above the water.

My weight keeps fluctuating. Gain a few pounds, lose a few pounds...and round we go. I'm getting nowhere fast. I've had a really bloated stomach for the last two days, it feels swollen and hurts when i press over it. My ribcage leaps with tension every now and then. I am not bothered by any of this anymore. Or about the fierce, lines of blood i threw up earlier. I left my dinner in for two hours today before i got rid of it, and still i did not care. I'm too down to care.

Bacteria spreading across a petri dish. Growing a milky, white film of decay. Dust spreading over neglected shelves. Disease slowly, timidly writhing through tree roots. Moving up the bark and across the branches, enclosing it and destroying each leaf.

Death in motion, but the mood kept so still.

Injected with filth which now lines each artery and wall of my anatomy. Clogging every sense of escape. No windows to jump from. I can't be freed from the trap, immune system packed in, unable to get out. So i sit and wait whilst it overtakes me.

I am not aware, i am not switched on, power button shut down. Yet, I know what is happening. I can feel the thick, fog gathering in my lungs. The acid rain pouring from those once beautiful skies. I just let it happen, i cannot move, or stop the generator, press reset. Stuck behind a screen of my own rigid thoughts. A waxwork with painted on features.

Distanced from all truth, all meaning, anything that consists of real life.

I missed a party to stay home, eat and stare though window panes. Being with my eating disorder alone is much easier than being around people. I don't have to pretend. I miss my friends, i don't even think some of them realise my character has fled. I am not me when i am with them, they have no knowledge of who i really am. What i do, how i'm sliding, how i'm digging jaged splinters through my flesh. I'm keeping so much inside. So many secrets.

Smoke pressed over paper, ash stings through white wood. Flittering specks of orange turn to black, then break away to just a smolder of fragmented pieces. I have turned to pieces, pieces of my former self, pieces i cannot make sense of.

Pieces that wouldn't fit together even if i tried.