Hidden Twin

I have a hidden twin.

Embedded somewhere

Deep within

And even the night,

Even sleep offers no respite.

She comes alive at dusk

And does not rest

‘Til the break of day

She invades my dreams

In a multitude of guises.

She is a hawk with talons of steel,

Savage and merciless and ravenous.

She is the evil spirit sucking me dry.

A pallid bluish green ghost.

A malevolent spiritual being,

A Roman deity.  A rainbow.  A butterfly

A fluttering moth, plain and brown

A flamboyant flake of crimson flame.

Sometimes she is an enchantress, an angel

Swelling as I shrink into myself

A swarm of black beetles.

Obscuring the moon

She pursues me through the dark forest

In which my nightmares dwell.

She whispers into my ear,

‘You are like the farmer’s prize heifer

Destined only to be sold at the cattle market

And milked for the rest of your life.’

Vacuous Bimbo Extraordinaire…

…Liz Jones of The Daily Mail strikes again in this article.  Ms Jones expresses her sympathy for women with anorexia but asserts that: ‘I have never been bulimic, thinking that particular illness too messy and self-indulgent… ‘, implying that both bulimia and anorexia are chosen by the sufferer.  ‘Which eating disorder would you like today, Ms Jones?’  No one ever asked me that question.  I wonder if she is aware of the existence of a subtype of anorexia called ‘purging anorexia’. I also wonder if she is aware that many women who become bulimic have a history of anorexia. Having suffered, at various times in my life, from both illnesses I found this article less than helpful. Making anorexia sound like a lifestyle choice further trivializes and simplifies an illness that both society and the medical profession have trouble taking seriously enough in the first place. Well done, Liz!  You’re about as helpful as the Maginot Line.

Addendum:  And I’m just a tad pissed off that Liz Jones, someone who uses her profession ‘journalism’ as a form of therapy and who is one of the most self-indulgent people I have ever encountered (irl or online) has the audacity to castigate an entire group of people who suffer from a genuine psychiatric disorder as ‘self indulgent’.  Look in the mirror, Ms Jones, and you’ll see the very personification of ‘self indulgence’.  And she hasn’t even bothered to research the illness she so casually dismisses.  The paragraph I quoted above concludes with this: ‘But the truth is I saw my three-week experiment of eating ‘normally’ as a bout of bulimia.’  The word ‘bulimia’ is a Greek word roughly translated as ‘ox hunger’.  It is a widely acknowledged misnomer.  Just like ‘anorexia’ when, roughly translated means ‘loss of appetite’.  To be officially diagnosed with Bulimia Nervosa the patient has to fulfill several diagnostic criteria one of which is ‘Bulimia nervosa is harder to spot than anorexia because many with bulimia have a relatively normal appearance. Those with bulimia always purge, but they don’t always do it by vomiting.’  Eating three thousand calories a day is not bulimia, Ms Jones, unless you regularly purge.  Something a proper journalist should have researched.  I do not know whether Ms Jones sees herself as a ‘journalist’, a ‘diarist’, an ‘editor’, or a ‘columnist’ and frankly I do not particularly care.  All I know is that calling sufferers of a very real, distressing illness ‘self indulgent’ is hideously irresponsible and someone who writes for a newspaper that regularly castigates female celebrities for failing to be ‘good role models’ for their ‘fans’ should be painfully aware of this.

Ghost Writer

I was the voluntary absentee

I effaced myself most willingly

Mine is a heart blown apart

Dislocated shards of plate glass

Flap down, smashing against

the ground. I too descend

You are no longer my friend

For I have made myself known

And once again you are alone

I close the prison gate

And it is far too late

To wonder if the destination

Has been worth the devastation

What do you do if you feel you do not belong? Not to a group of people, a nationality of people, a race of people, but to the species itself, to the planet itself. You are a minority of one. Somehow alien in a way nobody has ever been able to put their finger upon. But they know you are an outslder. They sense it. They smell blood. Human beings are pack animals just like any other. We have been ever since our inception and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Maybe an angel made a clerical error.  All I want is for the world to stop so that I can get off.

Fear