National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2012, Day 3.

My heart is a blazing fire. Its flames will never be satiated.

What drives

fuels

consumes

you?

It’s National Eating Disorders Week, and I want to consecrate some time to reflect on it. Only…I don’t quite know where to begin. There’s so much that I could say, but I feel like it would all be meaningless. But I suppose I could try to write anyway. I’ll start with this:

My heart is a blazing fire.
Right now I’m watching my neighbor (not literally, because that would be creepy) go down a path of darkness. I can’t help feeling like it’s similar to one I have taken. When she was younger, I used to babysit her, and she reminded me so much of myself. So much so that I feared for her. I remember coming home from her house and I hoped that she would never have to face the same pain and darkness that I had struggled with at a young age.

I sensed a sadness in her soul…but there was a tenacious strength within her that I couldn’t deny. It was as if her tender, precious heart was surrounded by it. Her heart was protected by it. I’d like to believe that we share that same strength.

Now, a few years have passed. She still lives next-door. “So close, yet so far.”

I know there’s nothing I could ever do to rescue her. And maybe even if I could, would I shield her from the world? I can’t answer. But I’m scared for her.

My heart has been set ablaze. The flames will never be satiated.

If you were to ask me what drives, fuel, and consumes me… This would be it. That helplessness when you watch someone go down the same path that you did.

What else drives fuels consumes? How about the image of a ten-year-old on a feeding tube?

It’s ugly. I call it Hell.

…I’m sorry that this blog post is scattered everywhere. I can’t get my thoughts together.

There is just so much that I could say in reflection on NEDAwareness Week. I could talk about helplessness, my own struggle with an eating disorder, Project H.E.A.L., my passion for helping other sufferers, etc.

So…maybe I will write another post tomorrow for NEDAwareness…

“Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.” ~ Deborah Chaskin

National Eating Disorders Association symbol.

 

 

Words.

Fly From the Flock.

I haven’t posted in a little while…

I just did a new piece. It was a fun one to do! I used an ultra fine Sharpie, water color paint, and masking fluid!

National Bad Poetry Day.

The name forms on your lips and it’s seemingly an eternity before I can actually hear it,

Ana–
Ana–
Ana–

(How come you make it sound pretty?)

(As if it were something beautiful, feminine, exotic.)

Finally, gradually,

p a i n s t a k i n g l y

the name is out,

(having scratched it’s way through your vocal chords and into stagnant air).

Now, I can’t help imagining my heart as frail,

hollowed-out glass
bold,
red

(the brilliance of blood on white satin ribbon).

Ana–
Ana–
Ana–

And I want to raise a hand in rudeness,

to interrupt before I hear the full name.

(The glass heart tip begins to crumble.)

(You pose a chisel in the center of it’s surface.)

You pose a chisel with your black-and-white word,

bloodied ink.

Ana–
Ana–

No more.