Tiger, tiger scratching for air OR I'm tired of being mad.

A bomb, tearing wildly the fabric of the air, screaming into a fatal birth. A fire in a congested, urban apartment building. A star going violently to death. These are nothing compared to the trauma of my heart this day, this hour. Anxiety is crippling, Depression rots out the mind, and Anorexia...is an old cancer that never dies if it never completely kills. I know all three- my sick little trinity- and hate them all.
This morning I awoke in bed in their company. Anxiety had tied my hair in knots as I slept, and the ends are cakey and white with the salt of Depression's tears. The room smelled like an ocean, bottled and stagnant a thousand years. The smell is my heart, which seizes and starts suddenly then sinks- the alternating influence of Anxiety and Depression.

Anorexia, awake before us all, stands in the kitchen staring at empty plates and cups. She twists forks in her hair, and suckles the cold metallic taste of a spoon.Some days she is more a sad, little ghost than a monster, but other's she hulks, heavy and hideous, a cancer that lives on my near death, and as I grow fatter, my pain and embarrassment. She is not kind enough to kill, nor am I strong enough to live without her. This is what you call an unhealthy relationship.

I watch her pick up an empty dish and lick the white porcelain face of it. Her breakfast. My stomach knots, and groans. She looks over at me disdainfully, and comments on my thighs. They were not so big and dimpled when I treated her with the respect she deserved. Remember when I loved you? Remember how close we were? Remember how free and safe you felt inside me, me inside you?

Thin people get away with everything...I know, and remember often how much easier it was to be the thinnest. Flesh is awkward, embarrassing...a good way to be noticed, and for all the wrong reasons. Anorexia will not come back to bed. She is disgusted by me now, and we live most days like a married couple, both equally repulsed but attached to the other. I'm not as beautiful as I once was. She hates my breasts and the soft round flesh at my hips. She often pinches my sides and glares disdainfully. Remember when I loved you? And I...remember when she was beautiful and powerful. I remember when she was the only thing in the world. Not even my sister, not even Micah (my once so Beloved), not even God himself mattered so much as her thin calves and delicate fingers. Since the days we loved, I've grown fat and she more and more like a sore. I lie awake at night and pick at her eyes.

This is the rest of our life.
This is forever.

Depression and anxiety only aid and abed the relationship. When Anorexia grows to angry or jealous to speak to me, they whelm my senses, they chide, and humiliate. It becomes more and more difficult to hide their influence from Dan, who sleeps with us in bed...often pushed to the edge. He asks me, "why are you so unhappy?" He says that he can't understand how some who feels happy to the touch, who- as he says- appears to exude all the joy and love in the world is so sore at heart, so sad, so sick of herself. This orgy has made Love difficult- for me more than for him. How do you love another when you hate or cannot understand yourself? I've turned to God, to the Vedic, and to my gracious mother so many times for a panacea, only to hear again and again that self-love is the only cure. Self love- between you and me- is not so fluffy and simple as Oprah or your grandmother might say. No, my child, my love, my stranger, it is for me the grail that everyone seems to posses and yet crave without satisfaction. I reach for it like dust on the air. I do not know for what I reach. Who are you? What- are you?

I love only the part of me that burns
for you.

I love only what my desire for happiness and peace produces for others;
warmth.

But this morning I am cold. I have nothing to give, and Dan shivers under the covers on the edge of the bed, while Depression makes our pillows soggy with anguish, and Anxiety pinches me awake. This horrible orgy, this sad affair is sadder only because it comes and goes, and when it goes it leaves memories of times that suggest there could be a resolution. I could love my fat thighs. I could eat without guilt, and sleep without screaming awake. I could keep him warm, and feel warm myself.

Couldn't I? God? Mother?

Until then a million pains rattle, grow large, and encompass me. Grandmother, I love you. Mother, I'm sorry you are scared. School, I fear every day I will fail you. I think today I am. My kindred spirit, do not go down this dark road- please. I love you. Hands, can you not create a way out? Words that release a little pressure from my heart? Father, I love him. Sister, I love him. Brother in law, I love him. Even if he tends bar, even if he never wears a white collar, even if we struggle to get by. I love him. I love him. Days like this

Dan, you are the only nourishment I have.

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I confess the motives behind these feels are in part very logical, and in part very unclear. I'm dealing with some family trails right now, concerning the health of my grandmother, the mental health of my father, and my own psychological struggles. The three I feel have coalesced, and become an awesome burden on my heart. In addition, I feel guilty for not having done any school work since Wednesday. Do you understand this feeling? I was so tired. I had so much on my heart. I felt I did need and was thankful for this break, no matter what outside issues where going on (and perhaps because of them), but now here it is Tuesday and I feel absolutely terrified that I'm going to fail my courses this semester. I feel stressed out about seminar papers, projects, and teaching. I feel worried. I feel sick. Sure, I always feel that way- but so very much so now. I'm actually scared, and not sure if I have right to be.

I guess that's the most honest thing I can say.