Anorexia

They said

And smiled an ohsoclammyandinfinitelycondescending

Smile

And we shook our stunned heads

To rid our minds of shell-shock

I wasn't really there

I'm imagining it

Because I was told by our cracked-plate Mum

When I came home from school

And ate a piece of lemmon drizzle cake

You ought to have come before

They said

And we tried to claw the water out of our ears

Because we must have heard it wrong

Because boys didn't get anorexia

Wrong patient, wrong label

I wasn't actually there

I'm imagining it

Because I'd been toying so far out in the ocean

That I never noticed how

You used the sand to fill your lungs

With depression when you were thirteen

Not possible.

And I think that there was a tiny rotted part of me

Which also held up its hands in protest

But not for your sake

Because that rotted part of me said that

I was the ballerina

And I was the vegetarian

And I was meant to be the one

Who forced tendons forwards

Through receding skin

The one to bend hip bones into skewers

Which could splice away the flesh

And retire beautifully,

Gracefully, beneath the clenching tendrils

Of my skin

And that same rotted part of me

Allowed itself to decide

When you were cut-off and shipped-off

That it was better that way

Because I got to live once more

Without the elephant in the room

Standing on my toes

And because I got to be noticed

For once

And for this tiny rotted part of me

And for you

I've drowned myself in guilt eight times over

Ninth life now and still waiting

To be retreived from the sea

By forgiveness for sins you never realised

I was committing

I gave up speaking to you when we visited

Because you never had the strength to lift your head

And so conversed as though the plasticised floor

Offered you higher quality compassion

And had better hold of your interest

Than I ever could

The rot spread deeper

Because you always had to be smaller

And your voice had to match you

While you shrunk

So you pressed it back in your throat

Until I could no longer hear the pointless answers

To the pointless questions

Of my small talk

And when we stopped talking

There was not really very much more silence

Than when we spoke

So I began to think it would be possible

For your whole body to starve itself out altogether

Without us noticing

Because once your voice was gone

And your mind was hijacked

That little rotten part of me

Told me you weren't real anymore