Allow me, then, the fish,
to describe an ocean:
its sighted, tossing waves
and unseen undercurrents.
The sharpness of a face with eyes like mirrors,
and cheeks hollow from imposed famine—
The brittleness of hair and nails,
stripped of their strength and shine—
The washboard ribs that jut beneath stretched skin—
A concave stomach that no longer aches,
because it has forgotten what fullness was—
Hips protruding like a skeleton’s—
Painful knobs of knees and elbows—
The deprivation of wasted flesh and sallow skin,
wearing their pain more boldly than clothes—
The lumps of vertebrae lining down a back,
carrying hardships like Sisyphus’s stone—
All of this you see and call it vanity.
The heart that labors as it weakens,
stripped brutally of its strength until no more—
The bones that sacrifice their integrity,
until they are as fragile as a bird’s.
The organs that struggle just to stay alive:
the liver, the kidneys, every piece
you healthy ones do not even think of,
holding the fraying body together—
Why? you ask. Why do this to yourself?
If you want part of your answer, turn to the mind:
first outside, then inside, as we shape the lens.
Anxiety picks and plays at uneaten food—
obsession chains to a cruel reflection—
You see insecurities swallowed with hurt
and all too often, no secrets come spilling out.
They show themselves as constant concern,
the shaping and modeling of presentation:
a perfect porcelain mask to hide the cracks.
Never saying what is felt, but instead,
this paltry voice squeaks what you wish to hear—
Never admitting the fish is drowning in its bowl,
slowly and steadily overcome by each gulp—You see distance, preoccupation with appearance,
and presume the shallowness of it all,
not knowing that every grasp for control,
every gasp for breath, every body check,
is a symptom of a pain unfathomably deep.
Inside, there is the trauma collected
over years of cutting words and isolation,
some holding attacks as dark as starless night.
The uncertainties and distrust in the self
and the knowledge the world is not a place
where the mind feels safe or at home—
It is crammed into the darkest recesses,
where it spreads like choking vines,
digging twisted roots of guilt and shame
into every aspect of emotion and perception.
Just as the eye cannot see itself,
but trusts the lens to show it the world:
so too the fish relies on distorting water,
and presumes its failure upon twisted reflections
showing every imperfection cut to pieces
and magnified to endless size.
The refrain: If you are not perfection,
you should not exist, you should cease to be.
So where, you ask, does this leave the soul?
Surely nothing so sensitive could flourish
among the strangling vines.
Somehow yet it lives, constricted on all sides,
but yearning for freedom, thirsting for meaning.
The vines you see have dug themselves in deep,
but there is more than skin and bone,
more than anxiety, pain, and grief.
It exists among all the darkness as a light,
flickering, perhaps, and fragile as an eggshell—
It craves all the same things that you might:
comfort, safety, truth, love, healing, purpose,
the connection to what it is to be human,
and all these things are denied it
by the twisting coercion of the disorder.
And yet, it will never surrender hope for them,
no matter how far the reach or high the climb,
and there is a grief so potent it cannot be spoken
when it is forced to move on.
Please remember that your words are stones,
and stones cast into water send forth ripples:
some rocks churn up sediment and shadow
sending the fish deeper into the bowl,
while more thoughtful stones dropped with care
are a gentle disruption of the water and its lens,
allowing clarity and an awareness of beyond.
