Poem:Taste

T a s t e (part one)

my lips are dry

cracked and swelling in the game

the taste of perfection

taints my tongue

let me out, let me out

a voice inside me trying to speak- but is never let out

not from this body, this cage

I have built endlessly

over a million lifetimes-

trying to understand WHY WHY WHY

trying to make sense of something

to give my life some meaning

help me, help me

I cry from the womb

mother- who are you? who am I? why are we here?

father- tell me what is right, tell me what to do, tell me who to be

I don't trust that I know

I don't trust at all.

the cage grows smaller

decorated, spun with gold, the prettiest cage around

I walk my body about

twirl in miniskirts, parade on high heels

watch me, just watch me now!

The cage is still shrinking

trying to set the voice free...

maybe if I get small enough, maybe then I'll be free

I could just squeeze myself out of excess flesh and bone

flesh and bone.

that's what I'm left with now,

7 years of dieting away my organs, my passion, my womanhood

I'm left with you, golden cage,

ugly reminder of a tiny child wondering (I was always wondering...)

my identity shifts from mommy to daddy to me

me?

Anorexia nervosa. a name, a structure of some kind, explainable,

understandable, simple, English, scientific-

close enough to God in this century.

after that came more:

depression, addiction, compulsion, obsession.

all concrete, medical terms in a chart I could read

there it was- me.

me.

textbook-smart, textbook-hard, with no need to feel a thing

my emotions were as dry

as my vitamin-B deficient lips

by then I was everything I ate and nothing I wanted to be

except almost dead.

T a s t e (part two)

if I had to go back, recount the memories, relive the horror stories

it would be simple

and neat

always very structured, strict and clean

organized and folded onto a page

the self-denial season, my attempt to coming of age

In my mouth the taste is still there

years washing down my throat

their eyes digging into me, peeling back the rippling skin

teasing my throat with a scream

the bile as sharp as my tongue, against the rotting of teeth

I never understood my mouth

it's ability

to effect my day

it's never-ending chew gnawing at my brain

I go back now, recognizing the taste

and my past unfolds

spilling out over the page:

age 15:

he noticed me

young, blonde, thin

I was everything I thought I could never be

and never believed I was

He called me, followed me, asked me out

I concluded- this must be love

for a while, at least

for now,

two months perhaps? two weeks?

I was in heaven...

a cute boyfriend that made me laugh

what more could I want? (I don't even have any wants!

that would be Wrong,

right?)

Then he dumped me

cold, mean

easy as a phone call- I was history

he broke my teenage heart.

I was devastated,

and felt my golden world ripping apart

so I searched & searched for a reason, an explanation why he didn't want me...

then it came

actually, it was always in front of me,

it was me

and my Body.

A few days after he dumped me,

he told a friend of mine about my naked body

a private moment we had shared,

and what went through his mind?

Fat.

fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat

and that I could lose five pounds.

me? the 99 pound duckling?

the too-tall and too-skinny, chocolate chip cookie eating me?

Of course! Why didn't I think of that?!

age 16:

no trouble finding boys interested in me now

I am on center stage- thin, blonde, tan

an ideal come to life and dying inside

but who has time these days to notice if all I eat is rice?

after all, I have become a Beauty

just 400 calories a day and you can be a star-

how come no one told me it was this easy?

age 17:

two years pass, two years of rehearsal

the final performance

mixing in with the carpet, red stain ascending,

I take a shaking bow,

as the stretcher

quietly prepares

for my exit.

T a s t e (part three)

I had a dream once

I was back in the hospital, suffering, starving

slowly dying

and my first love was there

to visit the white plastered walls, coat tails and magnifying glasses

dissection

he puts his arms around me

(again! at last!)

and held me tightly close close very close

because I was dying

his hug said Good-bye

and I reached around him, suffocating both of us

under the sterile light

he was busy loving me...

and all I could think about was his arms around my body

my Fat body

I'm too fat to be held by him

by anyone

I'm too fat for this-

I'm too fat to be loved, accepted, cried over

I'm even too fat to die

to dream....

It reminds me, I can remember, when I was seventeen

nervous giggles and sex jokes

graduation day dress hanging in my closet

threatening me-

I succumbed to it's silent stare

demands, defying

dictation's at me

and I passed out cold

at the movies, in front of everyone

a crowd gathered around me

paramedics at my feet

they tugged at my heart, forcing my lungs to breathe

and as they were pilling me weak and cold onto the stretcher,

I looked up to see everyone

millions of them staring down at me

and my body.

my Fat Fat body my grotesque size one

they were all laughing and pointing

they knew who I really was...

and now - years later

and I find myself at age twenty-one

don't know how I got here

not sure why I came at all

don't remember waking up, taking showers, getting dressed

all these years

but I'm still here.

now my existence hangs in the air

I'm smarter now

I've studied hard

women's issues, media manipulations, food depravation

I could give an entire sermon

my knowledge purged into the world

but that's not enough.

it should be, but it just isn't enough.

and so I'm still here

because I need to learn

I won't leave until I've learned what life is really about

how precious it is

how precious I am

and how cold I've really become.

and spirituality...

the term rests in my hand

I love the idea

and sometimes I convince myself that I actually understand

in a drug trip

I met God

she was me and she was everything.

in a meditation

I caught up with Her again

had a few more conversations

just to be sure I got it into my head.

but that's not what my life,

my twenty-one years I can own so far,

has been.

the spiritual experiences I've had

are sacred and sweet

held inside of me,

but I've spent a lifetime fighting with something else,

with Me.

It's an age old idea, a spiritual question, really, some say,

that at birth I was given

a train ticket to suicide...

and now suicide

is still only a train ticket away.

T a s t e (part four)

Smothered by food,

every ounce I lusted after for so long...

during my self-inflicted famine,

I eat now, all at once

my entire past is chewed and digested, in just one hour,

the laxatives and diet pills

bending and breathing inside me

take effect.

names from the hospital still sting me

anorexia bulimia anorexia (shut up! enough!)

every billboard every magazine

they are talking about it, whispering about it

probing into me

interviewing and pointing, staring openly

my body is on stage again

and my vision grows dim again.

(WILL I EVER, EVER ESCAPE THIS?!!)

tiny girl, wide eyes-

I hate her, but I want her back-

I lost her somewhere beneath all this fat

the tricks I practice have caught up with me

my body hurts, feels eighty years old... already

I'm scared and secretly glad

this is familiar, this must be safe, this impossible frame

the perfect one with the perfect teeth

which are always, always clean.

college student, with the American potential written all over me,

young, so young, in fact, I look fourteen.

I've talked about it, read about it, sang, cursed, and screamed about it

but I still believe in it.

My own passage to God, my only talent,

identity in disease-

and I won! I won! I must have won!

after all I've worked hard, so hard, for my trophy.

T a s t e (part five)

I can feel the madness of winter coming back through me

the desperation of illness and silence

the fear of knowing what I'd done and knowing I was the only one who knew

wondering if the pain shooting up and down my spine would pass,

or if I'd finally succeed in killing myself.

Anger

at the world's plead for beauty, for thinness

Anger

masked in armor,

a chance to end my internal war.

praying to God no one would find me like this,

and praying to God somebody would-

waking up sick and aching,

feeling my bones depleting against my bed

swallowing pill after pill in a haze of food and medicine

Remembering the promises I made, hovered and shaking over the toilet bowl

afraid of telling someone

afraid of not letting anyone know

Please die- I beg myself- and live as someone else

someone healthy, happy,

and thin.

(I thought then I was as close to God as I would ever be)

T a s t e (part six)

He said I felt cold

cold.

sounds like I'm dead

and I would, I would feel dead

if I could feel

what's wrong with me??

what the hell is happening??

I've been through my journals,

faced a thousand poems in my computer

no answers

who answers?

I don't know what this is:

Life

this thing I have

I don't know what to do with it

where to go with it

what to think of it

I think I have to start all over.

my body aches, it's painful to be alive

is this the way it's supposed to be???

I can't believe that

no I can't believe that

I won't

I don't trust that at all.

my spirituality still nudging me

forcing me to think

this disease lives inside me for a reason, I know,

and it will continue

to grow,

it will breathe-in my air

feed on my nourishment

travel using my feet

until I face it.

The doctors gave me drugs to cure it,

anti-depressants for two bucks a day

happiness can be yours!

but I'm still asking, b e g g i n g

for an answer

why am I like this??

my head is pounding

god I want to know I want to know

is it the past?

my family? childhood things?

was it the lying, the manipulation, the songs I used to sing?

was it the abuse I inflicted on myself

the hate

the hate I had

was it the starvation, the depravation,

the dream to be as thin as dead??

Then why am I still here-

what is that supposed to mean???

I don't know where I'm going or why

or who I've ever been...

I don't care I don't think

I don't even wash the fucking car

life is stopping and living and breathing

and I've got no space for air

(please please someone tell me what's happening!)

I gave up the dream, let go of the therapist-will-save-me theory

after a thousand dollars and a hundred therapies

I no longer believe that therapy is what I need

(ironic how I've known all along,

I already have what I need)

I want to find this,

this draining ache for illness, name it, hold it,

and get out of it

this passion to escape and climb away

Re-shape this for myself

I can sense it now banging banging on my head

tiny fierce sphere

twisting up to my neck

my whole body cramps up, I'm not at all comfortable here

too skinny

but still too fat

my logic runs out the door

such a responsible girl, though,

they said

such a good worker, such a good head

but they didn't know they didn't know

I was starving and dying in their office bathrooms

behind my employee-of-the-month smile

I hate I thought

I hate!

but I didn't act that way

the only talent I really have is acting, pretending, lying

(a toast to every story I've told, ladies & gentlemen!)

I can do it so well

I can believe anything I say

and so does everyone around me.

my head nodding politely

to everyone I'd meet,

while adding up calories and watching the scale-God at my feet

my head was busy, I guess,

with obsession and hate

and my heart was empty

even when I dared to eat everything on my plate.

you know the songs (music is my earthly version of God)

they were speaking to me

all that time

they were trying to tell me something

anything - if I was listening.

and I was

I tried so hard so so so so so hard (Do you know what that's like? Do you?!?)

those songs saved my life.

They were the only thing I could be close to that still treated me right,

something in the music

made me shiver and squirm inside...

it was a feeling, I think,

a rare real raw feeling, a

FEELING, breaking past my hallow shell

my skeleton of emotion.

the songs were feeling

FOR me

it was a feeling that I will never forget until I die.

And the real question always was

will I have to die?

will the anorexia creep in,

grab hold of my heart and starve the life out of it?

will it have to come to that?

I don't know. I hope not.

T a s t e (part seven)

Goddess, God,

The question of suicide has been penetrating my mind

since I was young, too young

and since I've tried, too hard, too too too too too hard

(You don't know what it's like, you couldn't possibly know what it's really like!)

suicide. such an ugly word

suicide. it holds such power still

I want to kill myself...

WHY

WHY?

I don't know...

because I'm scared

because this is too hard to face

because it's easy this way

because it's familiar

because it's safe

because it's the only way I'll know that I'm finally, finally thin enough.

I don't know what else to do

I've spent my life figuring out how to die

and I've got no idea how to live

(why is this happening? what am I supposed to learn?)

what exactly do I believe?

am I suppose to know yet??

(or am I just terribly, terribly behind?)

T a s t e (reprise)

age 21:

today I looked back at my life

and decided not to give up

so easily

instead of eating away my life

I want to feed.

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