Robbers

It’s 1:24 in the morning and I realize now that the hours between 12 and 4 have a funny way of making one either feel on top of the world or beneath it.

A man with green woven eyes that each started out with a train of thought that went on and on and on ending in tangled messes pooled in his pupils took advantage of me last night. It was dark and our blood seemed to be mostly comprised of Pinnacle bullshit and chain-smoked memories; we cut off what we could but somewhere, along the line, I forgot things.

Little interwoven fibers.

One

by

One.

There was no needle to pull the thread along.
And I forgot a few more inches of his eye string until all I had was a tiny little piece and I couldn’t quite remember just where we had started off.

I suppose I’d never seen the end of the world before last night; where salty air grips your throat violently.

Where the sea meets the sky in a dull blue line before you.

It’s where the wind caresses the tiger lilies in big ceramic vases, where the street glimmers with diamonds and emeralds of broken glass; where children’s thundering, heartbeat ­footsteps pound as they race for the rides in bright and foamy sandals.

Where the garbage and mystery flirt lazily with murder, where the seagulls converge on plump, glossy trash bags; where the flies hum their own ode to the stench amplified in July’s humidity.

Where tiny diners stand as they implode from within; where nothing ever changes.
It’s the immortality that lurks in the peeling, stained wallpaper, and the sticky linoleum floors and the cigarette-tainted voices of the waitresses.

I saw that last night. I saw it in the way his bottom lip missed a step when I murmured something about trust; I saw it in the way he swallowed me whole.

And maybe I’m insane for making someone so violent sound like a masterpiece but

Maybe that’s how I allow myself to forgive.

And maybe I can’t quote biblical verses or remember the story of Adam and Eve but maybe we’re all just misguided sinners in the hands of angry gods and maybe this is why 1:24 in the morning feels so goddamn beautiful even after men with heavy eyes ruin your favorite pair of underwear and

Crush your universe.

A Letter To The Things in Which I Am Learning to Love

To my stomach, an anomaly of soft curves made from proudly eaten cupcakes and pizza,

To my feet, calloused with midnight adventures and every tree that I have ever climbed while trying to prove to my brothers that girls are strong too,

To my hair made of tangled forests and wild vines- the dominant trait from the blood of my ancestors comprised of beasts and lion-hearted girls- I hold my head high to balance this crown.

My hands can’t fix everything no matter how badly my soul wishes they would, my eyes are wide and naïve searching for a god- a beauty that scratches deeper and realer than any manicured hand ever could- and my skin is rough and weathered and tethered but it is made of earth and young civilizations so I will not apologize.

To my body, I will apologize for betraying you because American Apparel only makes size extra small and I thought that was better, I will apologize for making you believe that freedom comes only in the form of beauty that is silken and bears a straight nose, I will apologize for starving you and abusing you and shredding you into galaxies on nights it felt too dark and too lonely to be alive, however,

I will no longer apologize for

Owning you.

To my body, my body that no longer offers ribs in the sunlight but, instead, offers strength in all lights, you are not just my body;

You are potential.

Let’s grow old together,

My friend.

Selfies in a leather bodysuit after pizza. Yolo?

 

Little Universe

I cried when my first dog, Belle, died. Like me, she was a hand me down from people who had less time than love for her and I think that’s why our souls understood each other; why a part of me died when she stopped breathing. I spent hours trying to study her, unravel her; I spent years trying to reprieve her, to revive her and although, during those years, I had no storms chasing me, I found refuge in the way she curled herself around me during crisp summer nights. I guess, in a way, it makes me selfish for wanting her to live forever but she grew old quicker than she should have and before I had the chance to understand how sad loss could be- we ran out of time to say our goodbyes.

I cried the night I could feel my dad giving up on me. I grew up admiring the way the world spun in his eyes and the way the Grand Canyon weaved puzzles in his palms but that night- the night I got too drunk to remember my name yet hardly drunk enough to forget that he was an ex soldier- I saw no evidence of an Earth and all proof that he had waved a dozen white flags long before I even had the chance to sober.

Not even the strands of the leftover buzz could muffle the sound of you forgetting me; erasing me.

Have I ever told you that I once saw Jesus in a McDonald’s bathroom stall? His skin was made of porcelain and his sins, made of stainless steel manufactured in China. In bold purple Sharpie, the door read “Eat acid, see God” and, although I’ll never admit it, that night I realized the teen spirit bleeds out in more forms than one. Holy scriptures of adolescence, psalms of hormone-driven emotion etched in pencil and teen angst somehow understood that we were all sinners searching for a way out-

That we were all flawed in some sort of way and that we may possibly never know if all dogs really go to Heaven.

I cried for eternities the night I became painfully aware of my imposition on space; that I took up more of it than I probably ever deserved.

I had every intention of stripping that night of its darkness but after hours of desperately trying to scratch the stars away from the sky with my fingertips, I realized that I was incapable of stopping my world from dying so, from then on, I chose to move my body gently and eat slowly; to swallow Eucharist in the smallest of pieces and nibble timidly around the cores of apples in the case there were grenades hidden within their cores. I learned how to read labels, to walk on the edges of my toes; I learned how to control, calculate, and categorize-

Good foods.

Bad foods.

Fat,

fat,

fat-

buffering the awkward matter between reality and the world as I had wished it would be. Food kept me sane; kept my worlds from colliding.

“Lex, you’re so bony!”, my mom would tell me as she laid rubbing my back after long days of work. I swear, it seemed like she worked forever. Her hands, cold yet never harsh, made maps through my spine and pit stops at my hip bones, knocking hard on them to make sure they were real. Making sure I was real.

“Bony, bony, bony!”

My mom was right, though. I was never a particularly large kid- my knees jutted out farther than they probably should have and I often found myself wavering at the lower end of the BMI chart during my yearly physicals. However, her phrase- my hip bones- later became the gauge of my progress- my worth- as I shifted from preteen to teen.

And I hope she never knows that.

I’d never blame my parents for my insanity. After all, when one tells you to jump from a mountaintop, you don’t close your eyes and let the wind take you just because.

No.

But me? I was born with too much fire and a hopelessly desperate need for adrenaline so, truthfully, I think I’d always sort of wondered what it’d feel like to fall, to be wisped away in a cool breeze just like the ones you read about in romance novels.

On nights when I cursed gravity for concreting me and the gods for making my feet too heavy, I found myself grazing the planes of the body that laid beneath the heavy sheets and thick night air, searching for those

hip bones.

On mornings when the air smelled of dew and cheap coffee and I prayed to the skies that I would have the power to be less needy, I found myself studying the way the shower water trickled down my stomach and over those

hip bones.

Hip bones.

You could tear into these words, rip out their roots, and chop away their stringy structures; you could dislocate these words, feel your fingers through their rhythms and peel away the alliteration that binds these letters together.

You could consume these words, feel the predicates dribble from the corners of your mouth as you crunch them out of existence; analyze these words, call out their “important” images and themes and crush them into powdery debris as you ask yourself, “…and how does that make you feel?” but none of that could ever erase the fact that this world is a perplexing place. In one motion it creates the most beautiful, freeing moments and in the other, it kills your dogs and makes you hate yourself for not being invincible. I used to cry over real things, you know. I mean, real, “Holy fuck!”, life-changing kinds of things. Now, I cry when I get stuck behind sleepy trains or when my pants don’t fit or when my apples are bruised or when other things that will never matter happen and I hate the world for messing up when it

made me.

For Insomnia

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I would tell you what gray areas feel like but I don’t know how to make suddenly finding yourself at the edge of your bed in which you’ve neglected to adequately make for weeks praying to a god you’re not even sure you believe in poetic. It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I would tell you what writer’s block feels like but I don’t know how to make coming to the harsh realization of the fact that you have been killing yourself for no real reason sound like a best-seller.

Last night I stumbled into my 10 p.m. car, this morning I slept past noon, last year I wished to breathe and now, it’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I still have no idea why my favorite pair of shoes always seem to wear out at the most unfortunate times or why life without food journals and scales seems terrifying.

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and this is not a metaphor for life. It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m still afraid of turning off the TV and, no, I’m not tired because I counted to 100 a thousand times and counted sheep a thousand times plus one and even that has only left me with a sore throat and brain freeze.

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I once heard somewhere that the practice of self love improves your hearing, your eyesight, lowers your blood pressure, increases pulmonary function, cardiac output, and helps wiring the musculature.

Imagine that.

Do you think if we lived in a world where everyone truly appreciated each and every piece of their being- “Baby, if ya got it, flaunt it“- instead of spending late nights in drive-thrus and liquor stores; shooting up in places of the earth that were not meant to be seen, then, could we know solace?

Then, could we live forever?

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I know it’s hard to love yourself even though “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” because sometimes what doesn’t kill you makes you wish it did but, it’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I hope you know that your lungs are made of trees.

Your limbs made of vines and your eyes- although science books will tell you that the stars we see are already dead and gone- are made up of tiny constellations that are very much so alive.

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m telling you all of this because I know, for me, sometimes at night when the air is dense and I’m missing home and I feel my soul bouncing off the ceiling and back into my throat like the lumps they warn you about when you lose something you love, I need to be reminded that

even at 4 o’clock in the morning

I deserve to live forever.

Friday Night Ramblings of a Teen Angst-y Teen

Do you ever just feel like you’re going crazy?

I’ll be the first to admit I am oblivious to the way humans work; the way we are born with constellations in our filaments yet neglect to see light, the way things as simple as a change of a letter can shake the earth-

morning

mourning;

I’ll probably never understand the way we, as humans, are drawn to destruction time and time again because our incredible urge to feel alive- to feel something– will forever seem stronger than our common sense.

I walked in on a male penis enhancement commercial today.

That was awkward.

It was eight in the morning and way too early to be in such a trying predicament however, thankfully, I’m a hardcore teen angst-y teen who likes to pretend like life doesn’t phase me so fortunately, the eye contact made between me and Natalie’s grandpa as the commercial explained erectile dysfunction and “better performance” was not the painful part.

Throwing up breakfast was.

Ugh. I know. It’s pretty much been going on all week. I’m an idiot.

The worst part about it wasn’t even that I got out of the shower, still dripping with water and diluted Pantene to do so. It wasn’t that I could taste the Dove bar soap on my fingers as I guided them towards the back of my throat or even that after toilet water splashed back up out of the bowl I spent 20 minutes desperately scrubbing the piss off my face because the worst part about it, about it all, was knowing that what I was doing was wrong in every way.

Sometimes I feel like I’m going absolutely insane.

Like…2007 Britney Spears meets everyday Naomi Campbell insane.

I wake up every morning uncomfortable and bloated and everything I’ve been trying to avoid feeling for these past three years and I tell myself that I’m okay and that my legs really aren’t that big and neither is my nose and that my shoulders are bearable both literally and metaphorically and so is my stomach but sometimes I really question who I’m trying to convince; who am I trying to recover for?

I feel massive and want need to lose weight.

And, I mean, truthfully, in my everyday life I’m surrounded by people who genuinely just don’t care. Not that they’re cold hearted or anything of that nature because they’re anything but that but, in all seriousness, they could probably care less about accountability or meal plans- what I eat or what I don’t eat.

And that’s hard for me to realize some days.

Although I know that treating my body kindly and feeding it properly is the right thing to do, sometimes I can’t help but feel like I’m betraying myself; like I’m going against everything I should be. Here I am, with no one “forcing” me to do anything recovery related yet still shoveling food into my mouth even when, sometimes, I’d just rather not because, why?

WHY?! What am I doing?

Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy…

Anyways, this is my first “ramblings” post partly because I feel bad for not posting in a while but mostly because I’m crazy. And tired.

And crazy tired.

Thanks for listening to my mush!

Morning Horoscopes

I find it kind of ironic that my sign is Libra.

Scales.

Real original.

With heavy feet and 6 a.m. under eye bags, I found myself standing on the bathroom scale this morning. Again. First with clothes then, none.

Risqué, I know.

As I stood there, bare, with dewy morning air brushing up against my goosebumped skin and sleep collecting in the corners of my eyes, all I could think about was how this time, last year, I wished to crumble. I felt the cold metal greet my feet and all I could remember was how this time, last year, I wished to empty.

I looked in the mirror beside me and watched my stomach swell and sink for longer than I wanted to. I don’t like that- watching what I could’ve been in my exhales fall to what I am in my inhales. Did you know that the average human spends up to five days out of the year looking in a mirror? I read that somewhere before. Before I liked reading. Before it mattered. Before it became relevant.

120 hours,

7,200 minutes,

and a gazillion seconds wasted on bullshit.

This is why I’m not a morning person.

But, then again, it’s easier to undo expectations when I’m half-awake.

Maybe, Sometimes

Maybe,

sometimes

I like how I think that I can chase the universe and the universe, me.

Energize me.

Grow me.

Form me.

Sober me.

Feed me.

Undo me.

Discard me.

Catch me.

I chase my trust issues with Jäger and run myself into warm highs because, truly, I’ve never been one to embrace the cold but, sometimes, I like that. Maybe I like how I’ll always be in search of myself.

Sometimes,

I like how the dark has always made me kind of nervous.

I remember spending many nights alone when I was younger because my sister had friends and I was weird and I remember laying on the top bunk, waiting. And listening. And searching. And I would yell for my dad even in the hours of the night when the silence was louder than the rest of the world and he would come into my room. And he’d listen. Sometimes I’d talk for only a few, fleeting moments-sometimes I’d talk for more- and then he’d walk me to the bathroom never because I had to go but because he knew that it made the dark seem less violent; less crippling.

God,

I swear, I could remember it like it was yesterday. There was something about the way he stumbled with his tired feet and heavy eyes that made me feel like we were both just trying to survive. He never hated me for having irrational fears. He never failed me.

God,

Typing this makes me question why I ever stopped loving him.

Maybe.

(sometimes)

Maybe, sometimes I talk when I’m not supposed to and maybe, sometimes the meals I find myself eating end up finding their way down shower drains or shady gas station toilets which, in turn, end up reducing me down to even shadier gas station floors but,

maybe,

sometimes

I kind of like that I’ll always be a little fucked up. My palms are stitched together by life lines and callouses and tiny little scars that no one will ever understand and my trash can is filled with Diet Mountain Dew bottle caps and other bullshit but, if that means that someone else’s palms won’t have to be stitched together by the same damn things and their trash cans won’t feel the need to drown in bottle caps and old bullshit then,

maybe,

sometimes

I like that too.

Maybe I like that I rush things.

Maybe I like that I see the world differently.

Did you know that,

sometimes,

the same stars can make multiple constellations?

I would let the darkness of all those nights swallow me whole, I would fill my trash can with more bottle caps than it knew how to hold and reduce myself down to a thousand gas station floors; I would write these posts day and night and afternoons and dawns and other times of the day the earth dissolves in if I knew it could save a life.

Because

maybe,

sometimes,

I like the idea that all my fears could change the world.

30 Day Recovery Challenge!

Hey everyone! So I usually don’t do posts like these so this is kind of awkies but on this blog’s Facebook page, I will be doing a cool 30 Day Recovery Challenge. Although it mostly focuses on recovery, look for ways you can apply it to your life. I would love for every single one of you to participate alongside with me and help spread the word about the mental illness or addiction you are personally struggling with.

To participate, simply like the page and either send me your posts or post them directly to the wall.

Click here and see what it’s all about!

I hope to see you soon!

Oceans Part II

Last night, I went to bed obnoxiously hopeful; I was determined to wake up bright and early and make myself an egg white sandwich with apple slices.

This is the part where we laugh.

After a long and restless night that felt more like a midlife crisis than anything else, “bright and early” ended up being more of a “What is life?” and the egg white sandwich with apple slices ended up being more of a slightly under-toasted whole wheat English muffin with reduced fat cream cheese. It was gross but it was safe and that’s what I needed in that moment.

As I sat picking away pieces of the bread, watching its edges crumble in small pieces onto my plate, I couldn’t help but think, “Me too, English muffin. Me too.”

In that moment, we were both crumbling.

You see, the human body is mostly comprised of four main elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, with the majority of that in the form of

Water.

One oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms held together by tiny covalent bonds.

Water.

Maybe that’s why I’m so easily molded.

Influenced.

Shaped.

PlayDough-ed.

Maybe that’s why I’m so painfully transparent.

You see, to be honest, I miss a lot of things about how my life used to be.

Not that my life used to be novel-worthy or anything like that but, it was simple. And it was enough. At least for a while. I miss when playlists understood me, I miss the way that, sometimes, I’d forget how to breathe when I told a good story, I miss bacon and eggs, I miss the way Sparkling Grape Juice made me feel like a cool kid, I miss when pouting still solved problems; when the melodramatic tragedies of my life played out on playgrounds.

I miss using night lights, I miss the way I used to loose things in the couch cushions and, yes, I realize that was a typo but I also miss when mistakes didn’t bother me so much; when personal errors didn’t feel so devastating. I miss yelling “Shotgun!”, I miss sifting creek sand between my toes, I miss the way I used to imagine how life would be after I parted ways with Earth. I used to imagine my bones being pieced together with some sort of paste or Scotch tape; threaded together and tossed back into space until someone happened to slip across it. I imagined outstretching my arms and embracing the sky only to be thrown back by its growls and plunging, headfirst, into the mud and stone and clay because, when it’s your last day, you don’t worry about grass stains.

I miss the way it felt the first time I saw my mom in a dress. I was four and newly adopted and although, now, it only feels like a vague memory faded by time and tears and Band-Aids and late night conversations, I remember it nonetheless.

It was a polka dot dress.

The dress was as new to me as she was.

As I hid beneath our wooden coffee table that wobbled awkwardly on its antique legs and smelled slightly like dust and musk, I saw the very edges of her dress breathe as she did and although she stood at just barely past five feet, she was a

Superhero.

Sometimes it’s hard to find words to articulate the magnitude of your emotions when you realize you’ve become nothing more than a shell of the person you used to be. For every day that I let go of this eating disorder and realize just how hollow and empty this disease has made me; I am realizing more and more just how many moments I truly took for granted. As I mourn the loss of the eating disorder- my coping mechanism and sense of purpose, of real importance for so long- I also have to mourn the loss of who I used to be.

And that makes me sad.

But I guess that’s okay, right? I mean, after all, the human body is mostly comprised of four main elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, with the majority of that in the form of

Water.

One oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms held together by tiny covalent bonds and family recipes and Captain Morgan and perfect staccatos and mistakes.

The brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery bullshit: 31%.

I am water but hardly an ocean.

A significant fraction of my body is precipitating and evaporating; readily

Influenced.

Shaped.

PlayDough-ed.

I am water.

Therefore, some days I am weak.

And that’s okay.

 

6:07

I like how I get the morning paper in oversized flannels.
I like that I take time.
I like that I
Double
Double
Check for leftover crusties on my oatmeal spoons.
I like that my dreams are bigger than you will ever be.

I like how my heart beat boxes when I’m put on the spot.
I like how my pinky toe has always been a rebel.
I like that I let you take pieces of me should you ever need the comfort.
I like how I can, forever, write free verses in your beloved name.

I like how I pace old hardwood floors.
I like that your words will, forever, wrestle inside me.
I like that you send me late Push Notifications.
I like how I forgave us long before I knew we were going downhill.

I like how I cry when I say goodbyes.
I like how you understand.
I like how I believed you when you said that, together, we would be incredible.
I like how, now, I see.

What happened to magnificence?
What happened to infinity?
I marvel at the way you drained me without any intention of filling anything in particular.

Without any intention of saving a life.