incompatible mechanisms

the 5th

deep and unsatiated
the hunger grows.

If you were like me,
your experiences with food were not happy ones.
Older family instructs, with a sharp tongue
to "clear your plate, we don't waste food!"

And then it becomes readily apparent they mean,
"If you don't eat everything, then you are wasteful. Ungrateful.
But if you eat it all too quickly and go back for more, then you need to sit down. Let it digest. No seconds."

With a mother who insists,
"We just ate four hours ago."
"Drink some water."
"Have a handful of almonds."
"Go for a walk."
"You aren't hungry, you're bored."
you adapt to your environment.
Maybe she's right. I am bored.

School days and weekends alike,
you drink water and insist,
"I'm full. I had some fruit.
I just ate."

Going to a friend's house and staying the night,
having dinner with their family.
Their dad and brothers ask for seconds and thirds,
but your already too tiny 8 year old friend says,
"Geez, I'm full. Aren't you?"
You lie, smile and nod.
"Let's go back and play some games."

Getting teased and picked on by your family,
walking into the kitchen to find something,
anything to eat.
Being met with remarks like,
"Don't you know what's in the cabinets still?"
"I can't bring anything into this house without you eating it all!"
"Don't touch those, they aren't yours."
"If you don't want what I made for dinner,
you can go to bed hungry."

If I don't eat, they complain.
"I bring all this home and nobody touches it!"
But if I eat it at all, even look at it too often,
"Well, I never get any 'cause this pig over here eats it all and never thinks about anyone else!"
(If I didn't eat it, we'd throw it away. Isn't that more wasteful?)

Being autistic makes it so much worse.
She expects me to eat raw oats and drink orange juice with pulp.
She hates when I consistently eat noodles and drink sweet tea.
Yet she buys it to fuel her humiliation material.

"Get your ass in here and eat this!"
It looks and smells like shit. No.
"Fine then, but don't you dare ask me to fix something else!"
I won't ask you then. I can microwave a Hot Pocket.
"Uhn-uh! Don't go and get shit out of the cabinet either!"
Then what the hell do you want me to eat?
"Learn to be grateful, because if you were really hungry, you'd eat anything."
With all due disrespect, no, I wouldn't. I'd starve before I ate mushrooms.

So here I sit.
In my cold, dark room.
at 8:30 p.m.

I am too mentally ill to keep myself alive.
I don't have enough energy to-
1. Find a big enough pan.
2. Fill it with water.
3. Wait for it to boil.
4. Find my pasta and read the measurements.
5.
6..
7...
But if I don't feed myself,
no one will.

I will wither and rot until my skin becomes one with my bedsheets.
Until my bones fuse with the bedframe.

I will sit in agony
because you refuse me decency.

- r.b auden