I wrote this a while ago, when i was a bit down, so a trigger warning, theres a bit of depression and ED in this... please don't read if you don't wanna, or if ur my mum, cheers x
When I was sick I used to cry.
I was terrified of throwing up.
I would call for my mum in the night and weep when I felt nauseous, she held me until morning and stroked my hair.
There was not a problem big enough in my brain that couldn't be solved by Dr Seuss's words in my mothers voice, warm milk and sugar and grandmas blue dressing gown.
My dad comes home with Lucuzade from Londis and i close my eyes with the BFG VHS rewinds.
12pm, brilliant, i'd be doing long division now, theres always a perk to throwing ur guts up on a Wednesday mid February when you're 9.
Now i'm 19
Some days i'm aware that the next sick day might be my last one. That depends on the weather.
I don't cry when i'm sick anymore. My eyes water when my fingers are down my throat but I don't think thats crying.
Ill lie in bed for days, half a jar of peanut butter in my stomach and tobacco scented fingertips.
Sometimes ill think about the shape of my stomach for 3 hours
Or if i'm lucky ill sleep
Now on sick days I turn my phone over when my friends call.
I cant apologise to anyone
But all I say is sorry
My mouth is full of sand
I cant move.
Then he turns up and once I see him I cry.
I want him to take it away. I hug him.
My chest against his- I lean on him,
i lean on him.
He tells me to eat something and have a shower and he shouts at me through a closed door. Then he leaves because i cant explain to him why I cant do the things he's asked me to, because i don't know.
I don't know why I don't do anything sometimes
and I don't know why I do some things that I shouldn't.
He doesn't understand that I don't open my eyes for as long as possible in the morning at 3pm because I cant bear to believe that i have to.
My body's forgotten how to wear clothes that arn't a uniform and my shower broke last month or I pretend it did so i don't have to see myself naked.
Sick days arn't solvable anymore.
They follow you to the bathroom at work where u stare back at your red eyes in the mirrors as you clean them.
They make you cry in the middle of a lidl car park without warning and catatonic on the dance floor.
They make friends worry, then annoyed, then angry when they see the lines on your thighs. They make you mute.
Your body a collapsing skyscraper over and over you cant take your eyes off the collapse but at the end of the say your eyelids show the same picture.
The buildings still standing but the cracks in the walls are a bit wider.
Sick days arn't validated by an appearance anymore because to have an appearance you must be tangible,
but the kind of sick days I feel you don't feel with you head full or stomach ache or pained limbs,
but with straight faces,
cold hands,
long sleeves,
no questions.
