Best Eating Disorder Poems
"Marionette of Flesh in a Borrowed Dress"
- Daniel Henry Rodgers
The hourglass,
a skeletal jester
mocks in the tomb's chill
Each falling grain an emaciated sigh,
"Soon you'll cease to be."
The mirror's cold reflection,
a Gorgon's ghastly guise
A marionette of flesh with vacant...
hollow...
colorless eyes.
The worms, like pallid mourners
watch me shrink
A marionette of organs,
cold and pale, pink.
This flesh, a borrowed dress
once sprightly
Now stained and thin
Holds tight the secrets only
death can win.
This borrowed dress,
a shroud where my story's writ
In laughter's faded stitch
and tear's accusing slit.
A map of life etched deep
with scars that mar the grain.
A raven of fleeting triumphs
a pendulum of ceaseless pain.
In the shadowed hollows
where sorrow resides
I languish.
marionettes of fate's cruel designs!
Each scratch and cut a lament.
each tear a bitter sea!
Bound by the chains of my...
limited mortality.
In this borrowed dress,
I mourn what could have been...
Lost in the convulsion of my own... sin.
I am transformed
but not redeemed.
I am drifting into the void
My spirits are shattered
and my dreams destroyed.
So in the silence of eternity
I find my rest
Lost in this body of my own...
detest.
And though this shell
a chrysalis
soon withers
and decays
I cast aside the shroud
no longer bound or worn.
Accept the endless night,
where a new self-forlorn is bourne.
Transformed
a residual relic
through the void
I fly
Suture with stardust catgut,
a worn scroll in the sky.
bowed before you once again
i’m worshipping you
when i said i wouldn’t
bent in half
i’m surrendering both my dinner
and my fears
knelt down before you
my legs tremble
my hands and chin drip
hunched over you
i am obedient
under your tyrannical rules
there will be no revolution today
Aghast!
Bulimia causes dizziness,
Eating fullfils gluttony,
Having induced jutting,
Kindly leaves me no option
Pertaining questions
Relating sickness to
Untold visions.
Wickedly xeric,
Yearning zinc.
Afterwards
Battling courageous,
Downing each fill,
Gastroenteritis has identified
justifications kindly
Leaving meals
No other person questions,
Relishing salads than unusual varieties.
Waiting x-rated
yummy zakuska's.
Dip it when you have problems,
Lick fingers as if there are no burdens.
Find myself eating in plates of sorrow,
Chew flesh like there’s no tomorrow.
Fire the aches in a griller,
Roast the angers in a shriller.
Fry everything on the pan,
I’m a lone stress-eating man.
Feel heaven with this food,
Don’t even know if there is a good…
Just taste things like it’s a first.
Forget stress and just die of thirst.
Don’t even care with my weight.
Let me eat fries when it’s too late…
I just eat when it’s much!
Got these munchkins in my pouch.
I hate the girl in the mirror
so you'll never hear me say that
I'm good enough
I know in my heart that
the number on the scale defines my worth
and that
being thin will make me happy
I refuse to believe that
there is hope
I'm ashamed of my body
no longer can I say that
I am worth fighting for
*read it again backwards*
I am a porcelain girl with cracked porcelain skin
I want to be pretty perfect thinthinthin
Skinny little thighs pretty pink cheeks
So down my throat my finger goes and up the bad things go
Nimble little fingers stained with chocolate cake and cherry pie, red stained lips and puffy pink eyes
Dead broken eyes and mile wide thighs, ugly cheeks and broken smiles
Happy pretty doctors giving out round little candies to keep me from dying
Screams and cries and lieslieslies
I am fine I am pretty I am fine
I am a little porcelain girl with taped porcelain skin, pieces chipping off and bugs crawling in
No food for days bingebingebinge
Little round candies fill the holes, keep the bugs away
Happy pretty doctors say that I’m better but my fingers are still stained and it won’t go away
Can’t stop won’t stop must be thin
Lies grow bigger smiles grow wider
I am thin I am thin I am thin
Eat
Eat
Those words I hate
This isn’t a cry, I just hate the way it taste
as its greasy eyes and melted sun linger over the bun.
A whisper lingers in my ear, spilling hurtful little lies.
Clinics and shrinks tell me I am mental
It is all in your head stop being non-cynical.
My mother says to be perfect, you must project
To be perfect is to neglect,
So why can’t I get this correct.
The smell makes me queasy,
Maybe a little uneasy
I take a bite
Maybe two or three.
This mirror starts to hate me,
aggravating my soul
letting me see I have no self-control.
This body is wavering.
I push, till it comes up,
and soon I'm at ease,
For this whale has been lifted.
My hair is dull, my body thin
I feel nothing within
ED has become my friend, he is unrelenting
He lingers in this hellhole that has begun
Why can't I eat?
Do I look fat?
I don't want to eat.
Who is the girl I see,
is that me?
It can't be me.
They say it's me but they can't see,
it hurts, I feel weak.
I think I'll sleep.
I stare timidly into the softly lit mirror,
Its gaze staring back at me unrecognizable.
I've been told this person is my friend,
But its reflection paints a different picture.
Its mixture mixes a mess of colors I never thought go together anyway.
A bit ghostly.
I trace its outline carefully -
A bump here, a dent there, extra padding everywhere -
So pathetically unfamiliar to me.
So frightening
to me....
To me
to me
to me
to me
Why does no one else seem to see
What I see?
What I see...
I've been told is my friend.
But friendliness bodes forbidden,
Foreign between the eyes of those destined to be one.
When will I learn my body is my friend?
Who honestly teaches that anyway?
I say honestly purposefully.
Lies, all lies.
You see it, don't you?
I don't even need to explain for you to know.
That's how low this show has gone.
I need help unmasking and redefining
this
festering,
fatal
phenomenon.
If you’re reading this, don't tell anyone:
I guess you’d figure that by now I found it.
There’s something so innocent, yet menacing about the way you move.
They say there’s no saints without sinners.
I used to be The Catcher in the Rye
but now, I lay helpless until noon after kissing the floor every time it gets dark.
Still friends with my demons, simply levitating to avoid them,
my fingers smell and my jacket is stained, bleached in a few areas
and my neck hurts, aching from the stiff, hunched position.
I wish that when I told you how hollow I was, you believed me.
But no one will question me if I smile,
so I will sit and grin all pretty for you
as my teeth decay
and I blankly laugh at every misogynistic joke that comes my way
in a stinging slap to my face.
I’d reckon that it’s better to burn out than fade away.
And I'll take my ibuprofen dosage to combat the migraines
so you don’t hear my complaints.
You feel invincible when you're young,
too bad I'm a grown up now.
Hell has insisted his normalcy on me.
I know you know that one of us was lying.
The things I did to feel alive…
the ones that brought me the closest to departure.
You were my reason for living, my brush with death.
But this one isn’t about you, even though your eyes are still seared into my mind, your voice still pierces my memory, those songs may be ruined for me, and I still lose my appetite every so often when I think about what you were doing with her, but thank you.
You saved me from myself by holding me under your foot for five months,
crushing my existence into shards.
And I’m still picking up the pieces.
But I won’t cut myself with them this time.
Not after what you said on my last tuesday there.
I now know that loneliness is veritably freedom disguised as the antagonist.
And finally, my voice is shot, rawly lost, but not from the agony this time.
My voice-- it’s gone with the warm wind, the windows down.
It wasn't easy to be happy for you, but I remind myself of my power:
I am nobody's problem and I belong to none other than myself.
“Mommy, mommy!” I desperately scream at 4, longing for comfort in her welcoming arms.
We are watching a film about the circle of life. The movie showed the sheep at birth all the way to its final stages. Snot puffs out of my young nostrils like the smoke in grandma’s cigarette. My heart is racing in absolute panic as I bounce my knee up and down and shake uncontrollably. “I don’t want to die!” I shout in distress.
And 10 years later I am once again in my mother’s arms, yet all frail and bony like an ancient mummy in an Egyptian sarcophagus. I am laying on my brittle hospital bed with my exhausted eyes blinking even slower than a salted snail. I touch my nose and wince, as my feeding tube is 3 sizes too big. I can hear the whirring of the pump admitting into my stomach with nutrition I was convinced was unnecessary. And with strained breaths and my lips drier than the Sahara Desert, I make out the words “M..mommy?”
“Will you let me die?”
It’s crazy how times can change.
Don’t be afraid of words like thin and fat or slim and large, of discussing shame or diet or weight -
there is nothing wrong with learning and conversation, of mistakes and missteps and change.
Just know that food is neither good nor bad, it’s never a guilty pleasure or even a treat -
eat what your body needs, what makes you feel good. Ignore calories and traffic light labelling.
You will get better and yes, you may relapse, but the future is both wonderfully lighter and heavier
because your body is a living genius: treat it to music and bathing, to wine and incense burning.
I’ll talk to you from the shore, as if I wade into the water with you then we’ll both flounder -
but I’m sorry for getting angry, for asking how you could let this happen. Instead, I’ll listen.
You don’t weigh stones but rather laughter and singing, last year’s holiday and kisses from friends.
Your weight is that of a survivor, not a sufferer. And I know now, son, this also happens to boys.
The thought consumes me “Don’t eat” you’ll just get fat
All I want is for my stomach to be flat
Is that too much to ask?
So what if I don't want to eat? It just feels like a task
But I’m not one of those people who binge…
When I look into the mirror I cringe
I hate what I see
My reflection staring back at me
People say “you are already skinny”
I sit there and I cry
Im spoon fed lies
Screaming at myself “WHY” “WHY” “WHY”
Why am I like this
I feel better with every meal I miss
Filled with pure bliss
As I watch the numbers on the scale drop
I know it's wrong but I just can't stop…
The scale starts to call and I cannot resist; constantly drawn to my biggest fear.
The painful number that I see, never leaves my mind.
Every day. Every minute. Every second. She never stops - this voice inside my head.
She speaks to me. She yells at me. So hurtful; the words that she says.
I will never be who she wants me to be.
"Don't eat that", she pleads. "Look in the mirror and you'll see."
"You're fat!" "You're pathetic!" "You're a failure!", she screams.
She makes me cry, as I fall to my knees - tears falling down, I will never succeed.
I'll never be good enough. She will never be pleased.
Complete perfection is what Ana seeks.
I am her slave, but she's good to me.
She gives me strength, yet makes me weak.
Ana tries to make me thin. She brings me hope. She's all I need.
And even if I tried to break free...her disease has already taken hold of me.
when i was younger, a meal out at a restaurant wasn’t a weeks worth of skipping breakfast
it wasn’t laxatives to make me feel worth something.
since i was a child, the word fat has been used to shame people. it never hurt me, until i realised it was supposed to. so when i was called fat i took a look at myself in the mirror and didn’t see a healthy child who enjoyed three meals a day, i saw a girl who would look better with her fingers down her throat.
i didn’t realise feeling hungry would become a thing i felt proud of, something about the cold water travelling down to the empty pit of my stomach made me feel whole.
i began to forget all of the things i loved in life and my illness was all i thought about.
people would comment on my weight and i became a valuable subject of conversation. “oh look at how slim her legs are” “look how much weight she’s lost on her face”
why would i stop when my eating disorder was the most exciting thing about me.
dinner dates with friends and movie nights turned into checking the calories on a bag of popcorn and crying when i realised i’d surpassed my daily limit.
the scales became my best friend and i wasn’t worried anymore about feeling full, i was obsessed with feeling empty
i was scared of what would happen if i picked up the fork or didn’t check how many calories were in a tomato
binging because my support system and purging became my routine
the illness hasn’t stopped hurting me and i’m afraid it will never stop
but i’m more afraid that it does
-unKnown Person