A Fraught Bid

60 days to disappear in China

On a city street corner in the dust bowl of Asia

the locals gather to practice American English.

As a teen girl with an observer persona, instant celebrity status

vacuums dry my circle of comfort.

My fan base of small-statured, warm-toned women

pat and pinch my cheeks, chanting

on my anomalous pallid white skin and extreme height.

And their fervor triples as soon as I speak...

American English.

The man pedaling goat skulls, chicken’s feet, and mutton kebobs

from a nearby cart steps in to hand me a foot.

I sling the maggot off and bite

into the greasy rubber. . .

smiling, from the   top   of the other-side of the world.

Shattering Silence & Grabbing Granades

My disappearing act to China feeds my heart enough to keep beating.  I chase the feeling of safety like a meth-head chasing a high. My father meets me at the airport when I return to the states. My father/my hero/my bond/my destroyer lifts me into the air in the terminal, and I fall from his arms down a funnel, landing face down in an anorexic hell.  

The pain and toll absorbed by a human body eating its own heart muscle matches the torture breeding in my brain. My mother tries. Without a clear vision of the covert affair in her home, mom attempts to tunnel me out with a plastic spoon.

Bro-ke n

Desperate to disappear, I dined on four saltines

Swallowed gum to entertain my gut for hours

Sprinted around the track until unconscious

Layered jeans and turtlenecks in summer

Avoided human interaction and touch

Celebrated hunger pangs with pride

Clenched a mattress in my teeth

Crawled the stairs with tears

Dismissed a broken spirit

Chewed my fingers

Withered and

Waned

.

One night mom wakes me, tells me to put some pants on and come downstairs. Halfway down I see the Fire Chief and Police Sergeant in the foyer. It suddenly occurs to me to get dressed. I stand on the steps until I hear.  My father is dead. I push my way through the outstretched hands and run down the street until I hyperventilate and fall to my knees. 

The next day his briefcase arrives and within minutes, the Pentagon calls. I overhear mom asking if she should clean the blood off.  Even with D.C. a solid hour’s drive, the black sedan shows in 40 minutes. The kind man in a black suit tells mom to take the insurance check.

I walk ahead of mom into the house and uncle leads me to the food. I fill a plate and eat like my 5’11” skeleton weighs more than a hundred pounds. 

And just like that, anorexia ends. Aside from the soul food handed to me by the Chinaman, I offer no explanation why I live to tell. 

Uncle drives me to the fire department to box dad’s belongings.  Items I expect to see but still shock, we toss. The unforeseen I uncover in his desk drawer.  There on top, dad’s obituary in his own handwriting. And just beneath, a birthday card and gift to me, six months before my birthday.

Ultimately, my father gets to disappear. I am left to hold the guilt and the shame.  The truth: I cannot process the relief-of-death alongside the despair-of-loss. The simultaneous fire storm of opposing emotion forces me to wrestle the relief into hiding. Perhaps he intended the desk-drawer-gift as more of an apology and the true penance: suicide. Yet, I continue to wrap my neck in the scarf of responsibility for murdering my father.  I told him I would not stay silent four days before standing on our stairs in my underwear.

..............................

The horrors stayed silent, the suicide – buried (literally, metaphorically, and literally again), and my selective mutism as a child – a foretelling of the ashes. What has silenced you? What buries your dreams and innocence?

Feeling too weak to walk out of your cave? Yeah, no doubt this comes with the rules of isolation, self-deprecation, and shame. Listen, I’m not an expert here; I’m someone who never threw in the towel. And, I needed and still need help; meds, therapy, and connection.

Your addiction may not end in an instant. I like to say mine did. And it did . . . sort of. I jumped crutches so many times. I sought comfort and grabbed grenades in a fraught bid to pacify my pain. I hurt. I hurt so crazy bad. And I let pain take the wheel. Maybe the turning point was allowing the pain instead of running away.  

Reach out your hand and pretend mine is extended. Hold my hand. I see you. You are important. You are valued. Your life matters. You have within you what it takes to smear those ashes on your cheeks and step forward.

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If you are contemplating suicide or self-harm, you need immediate help. Call 911, 211, 1-800-273-8255, or text HOME to 741741.