It wasn't going to change. Never did. Day after day. After day. The clouds would part, the light shining through. As though the trees were a stained glass window, not letting quite all the sunshine enter.
    The grass would be damp with morning dew from late night rain. The trees would help the wind whisper its secrets along the path. And he would laugh and sing as we walked to school, skipping and running. Darting in and...

I was 12
I should've been playing with makeup
Not my life
I was 12
I should've been wondering what to do in life
Not what to do after death
I was 12
I was supposed to be laughing so hard it hurt
Not crying so hard I fell
I was 12
I was supposed to have no cares
Not so many I had circles under my eyes
I was only 12
Before shipped off to fight an entire war

 

There was nothing but liquid ice. Liquid ice beneath me, above me, around me. I was trapped, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. How could I? The ice and sea had always been a friend of mine.

I had a foggy memory of plunging into the icy depths, welcoming the cold. But there was something else… Something that was nagging at my brain, urging me to dosomething, but the rate at which I was slipping from consciousness didn’t...

I feel like murder today,
Sharp, painful prickles under my skin,
Heart keeps twisting, turning and thump-thump-thumping,
Trying, trying, trying to act normal, like I'm supposed to be,

I feel like murder today,
Everything is black and white,
Eyes are darting around, nervous and terrified,
A feeling, a horrible feeling, that something's not right,

Their voices keep buzzing, buzzing, buzzing,
And I'm trying to block them out,
It's not working, it's really not working,
Maybe I should just force them...

     Humans crave social connection. However, one fact that is often overlooked is that the smallest relationship that we form with everyday people, some that we see as strangers, are the ones that keep us sane. These are the people that you see every day: the barista that takes your coffee order, the custodian in your office building, or the guy that you nod to every time you see him on the bus. It turns out that we often forget...

    It was 10:00 the next morning and they still had no idea where they were.
    "It's not even that we don't know where we are," June muttered to herself. "It's that we don't know where they are. Because we've got this map, and we know where the house is, so we know where we are."
    "They've probably moved on," Edwin said. "Either they've moved on or they've decided to look for us."
    "Well, they haven't moved...

Cold. Dark. Silent.
Winter? Night? Loneliness?
Snow. Stars. Heartache.
What were these blank blips of thought floating groggily inside my... my what? Inside me? Yes, inside me.
They were like unattached particles that simply existed with a puzzling presence within me. I couldn't place them, it was disturbing.
But still, they sprouted in the blank numbness of within, not having any purpose rather than to cause a disturbance.

All I knew was that it was Cold. And it was Dark. And...

Writing is an escape from one reality into another. And I know that the worlds we write don't exist, but it is our job to make the reader forget. To string words together in such a magical way that it creates a portal to a universe of our own design. It is the perfect pairing of mind and heart where the rhythm of the words you choose matters just as much as the words themselves. Writing is not so much...

    The pain was hard to get through. She hadn’t felt anything like this before. Maybe once, long ago. She thought the crying would stop and she’d run out of tears, like in the movies. But she was too new at this. They kept coming. The same alarm woke her. The same breakfast she ate. The same steps she took. She was in a daze, a dream. Why couldn’t it have been a dream? The air was still warm from yesterday’s...

    It wasn't going to change. Never did. Day after day. After day. The clouds would part, the light shining through. As though the trees were a stained glass window, not letting quite all the sunshine enter.
    The grass would be damp with morning dew from late night rain. The trees would help the wind whisper its secrets along the path. And he would laugh and sing as we walked to school, skipping and running. Darting in and...

I was 12
I should've been playing with makeup
Not my life
I was 12
I should've been wondering what to do in life
Not what to do after death
I was 12
I was supposed to be laughing so hard it hurt
Not crying so hard I fell
I was 12
I was supposed to have no cares
Not so many I had circles under my eyes
I was only 12
Before shipped off to fight an entire war

 

There was nothing but liquid ice. Liquid ice beneath me, above me, around me. I was trapped, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. How could I? The ice and sea had always been a friend of mine.

I had a foggy memory of plunging into the icy depths, welcoming the cold. But there was something else… Something that was nagging at my brain, urging me to dosomething, but the rate at which I was slipping from consciousness didn’t...

I feel like murder today,
Sharp, painful prickles under my skin,
Heart keeps twisting, turning and thump-thump-thumping,
Trying, trying, trying to act normal, like I'm supposed to be,

I feel like murder today,
Everything is black and white,
Eyes are darting around, nervous and terrified,
A feeling, a horrible feeling, that something's not right,

Their voices keep buzzing, buzzing, buzzing,
And I'm trying to block them out,
It's not working, it's really not working,
Maybe I should just force them...

     Humans crave social connection. However, one fact that is often overlooked is that the smallest relationship that we form with everyday people, some that we see as strangers, are the ones that keep us sane. These are the people that you see every day: the barista that takes your coffee order, the custodian in your office building, or the guy that you nod to every time you see him on the bus. It turns out that we often forget...

    It was 10:00 the next morning and they still had no idea where they were.
    "It's not even that we don't know where we are," June muttered to herself. "It's that we don't know where they are. Because we've got this map, and we know where the house is, so we know where we are."
    "They've probably moved on," Edwin said. "Either they've moved on or they've decided to look for us."
    "Well, they haven't moved...

Writing is an escape from one reality into another. And I know that the worlds we write don't exist, but it is our job to make the reader forget. To string words together in such a magical way that it creates a portal to a universe of our own design. It is the perfect pairing of mind and heart where the rhythm of the words you choose matters just as much as the words themselves. Writing is not so much...

    The pain was hard to get through. She hadn’t felt anything like this before. Maybe once, long ago. She thought the crying would stop and she’d run out of tears, like in the movies. But she was too new at this. They kept coming. The same alarm woke her. The same breakfast she ate. The same steps she took. She was in a daze, a dream. Why couldn’t it have been a dream? The air was still warm from yesterday’s...

 When were you first diagnosed with anorexia?
I think my mum suspected it in Year 5, but I was officially diagnosed with it at the beginning of Year 6 by my psychiatrist, Audrey. She gives a visible shudder and I lean in, intrigued.

What did you think of Audrey?
I would say that, in all my life, she is the only person I have ever hated. In my state of denial she seemed almost like a fairy tale villain...