I optimise myself at every turn and every moment
Wondering often if this is really a normal way to be…
To occupy a hyper aware, hyper sensitive state of being
Where the only concern in this ephemeral life
Is what people think of you.
The only fearsome, fret-worthy foe
Is how I’m perceived by anybody I cross paths with.
I feel desperate for vacancies under Beauty’s wing to open up
I tell her i’ll mold to anything you want me to be
Just make me the kind of pretty that’s universally acknowledged.
That’s impossible, she replies
And I don’t even dispute it, because I know it to be true
Yet I pound my fists against the wall and stomp my feet
Then why hasn’t my brain got the memo, I cry
Tears crawling down my cheeks like two Olympic sprinters
And I’m screaming now because how has one part of my chemical makeup
Not got the memo
While the rest is quick to accept.
I know nothing good can come of this conversation
Yet I still end up inviting Beauty into a meeting room every other day
To plead and beg for the impossible.
She charges me for her time and I leave with a bill the size of a jumbo jet
It gets paid in instalments
Which means I never reach the point of being debt free
Because this loop goes on forever.
Tag: anxiety
The cabaret of body dysmorphia
I spend all day twisting and contorting my features
To feel like an ounce of a human
Worthy of love, worthy of life.
I spend every minute feeling compelled to look my best
To every passerby
They could have a face like a foot
And yet I’d still seek to impress
Like a peacock riddled with cancerous boils who flashes her feathers
To hide the putrid, pus-caked skin
Clinging to her underbelly.
Every action is shackled to Beauty
Every head tilt, smile, stroll or expression
Doused in a sickly sweet, eager to please haze
Of self optimisation.
Little tantrums
The heat brings with it a sartorial guessing game,
a tricky type of trivia that sits itself down on my synapses
and squashes my brain.
Playing dress up in the evenings to help stave off ill-feeling the next morning.
Planning is my greatest ally – but even then it’s not always foolproof.
One reflection glimpse sends the sufferer into a spiral
crooked, wonky, wrong parting, poor posture
a cauldron of chaos and fiery fear
dirt-ridden disarray, shame at looking a certain way
and clothes that don’t hug but rather stifle my body
clinging like skin but foreign, alien
ill-fitting except on the rarest occasions.
In summer it’s strip off time, fewer opportunities for disguise
because legs come out, shoulders bear the air upon them,
shorts cradle thighs.
Finding some thing that doesn’t light the match of disordered thinking
is near impossible. And so there’s struggle and copious online orders
to soothe and improve but it never lasts
because trick mirrors are everywhere
and my mind remains in sabotage mode.
From very high to very low
Today was a day of mammoth contrasts
when the good met the bad and then the ugly
and I found myself struggling to claw my way out of
a cylindrical hole
my feelings had pushed me into.
I think I broke part of my brain because this oxymoron was so loud
and moronic, true to its name
I think the bits of flesh couldn’t handle two juxtaposed giants
vying for my attention
I’d like to think they had equal chances but it’s clear the bad had the upper hand
the smirking winner
the bad took control and the good lay flaccid and dull
under a dreary spotlight
incredible praise met with steamrolling terror
that glides over you like you’re a wannabe pancake
making mince meat or mashed potato out of my head
an unbelievable contrast that collided against my skull
and I haven’t been able to think straight since.
Happy yawns
I never write when I’m happy
Except for now, while I’m bursting
at the seams with gratitude.
It’s overpowering
like water running through the pipes of the soul.
I sat on the carpet beneath the Christmas tree
and soaked up the flickering of the lights,
brushed the lukewarm, balmy carpet
with my fingers
and felt comfort envelop me,
cradle me,
shower me with its kisses.
Past experiences will always remain,
the future will always feel foggy,
I’ll always grapple with the present.
I may look upon it all fondly,
but that doesn’t mean I need it.
Small accidents
The thing with this illness is that it wears me like a dress, parades around with me wrapped around its waist, forces my insides to squeeze into its elastic. It wears me like its favourite suit, especially when I’ve done my makeup or my hair isn’t right.
I’m black and bruised, fluttering about in a frenzy, its favourite court jester, its clown that skips to its beat, making itself look silly, feel silly, act silly.
I need to get out. I’m dying to quit posing as one of its outfits, desperately deafening cries from inside that never make it out my mouth. I’m paying more attention to this disease than the one that’s currently plaguing the world.
Avoidance behaviours
My narrative is a series of shoulds and should nots
I shouldn’t be afraid of the things I fear
And I should be more ballsy, more ebullient
I shouldn’t need help
I should be able to untangle all of this myself
A very intricate and unforgiving
Cats cradle of “threat”
The brain is an unkind, messy, gelatinous lump
That’s ingeniously cruel
Like Hannibal Lecter.
I take myself off to parks
Remove myself from these four walls
Sip lattes I can’t afford whilst mulling over these shoulds and should nots.
At least when working, theres no space to think
No need to dwell and torture and yell
At your insides as though they were naughty children
With their Ribena-stained lips and
Mud-caked fingers.
When the day is bulging and fully occupied
Fronted by a “no vacancies” sign
There’s little time for grumbling
Everything’s poised on the edge of eruption
Full and tiring
But when the days off clump together
Like hairs in a drain
The mind starts to melt
Fog throws itself over everything
Like an invisibility cloak
Enveloping, suffocating
Darkness inflates like a balloon
It covers all the corners and climbs into crevices
It fills its boots with the pure air
And stomps away with it
There’s gorgeousness in everything
But today I am blind to it
Blind to everything except myself.
Hamster wheels
I might be a slave to capitalism
That’s what I’ve decided
These wild hours sat with a screen
And then evenings spent pumping out words
Like some verbose, defecating machine
Weekends working that hamster wheel again
The money is addicting
And the silence of not doing
Is deafening
So I’ll do and continue to do
To fill the quiet air with pennies and pounds
And stop it inflating with the cold tickle of worry
Bumbling, sore, back is bruised from the inside
Chest is tight, feet feel swollen
Convinced I’m dying in some way
(I guess we all are, in the end)
Poised to deliver, biting off more than my mouth and fingers can handle
Capitalist slave, I didn’t realise rest is rebellion.
Tired and lonely
“Oh my god, other people struggle”
that’s what you hear them say
today it’s debilitating
so was yesterday’s pub visit
and Friday’s pool palava
enough tears to sink a ship
watching Blended with Drew Barrymore
and yearning for that family
my feelings are playing musical chairs
when it stops you hear the clap of arse cheeks
sit themselves down
and with no music to dance to
they twiddle their thumbs gingerly
Christ knows if the noise goes
the fear starts
leaps to attention
like some Nazi guard
the music can’t die down
else I’ll die with it
I stepped out to Londis and squirmed
teeth chattering
mind nattering the whole way
it’s cruel to live like you shouldn’t be here
and the crying is getting old now
I’m bored
wilting like a weed
I’d like to hit somebody
and really yell with my lungs
because I haven’t done that before
(except into my pillow)
and make them burst like two water balloons.
A hazardous week
I have been knocked over this week
Like pins at a bowling alley
Kicked and thrashed
Battered against the back
Of that mysterious black bit
You can’t see behind
Throttled by failure
Plagued by faux pas
And today I am supposed to dust
Myself off and present the shiniest
Brushed aluminium version of myself
To a total stranger
Desperately seeking an escape route
A respite for this mangled brain.
talking to my pillow. 