Summary: I find all of this out because I need to control something. But every time I hit that gag reflex, I'm not really in control. It's an illusion, really, because my body reacts even when I wish it wouldn't. I control nothing. AU CB prose poetry, mainly dealing with Blair's bulimia.
AN (1) : Recommended listening : "To Be Alone With You" by Sufjan Stevens and "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver.
AN (2) : If anyone's looking for an amazing, heartbreaking, beautiful book, read The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow.
AN (3) : So, friends, this is pretty much prose poetry. Basically, that means that this piece is going to be super experimental. So don't freak out when you don't see quotation marks with the dialogue. I didn't forget or anything, this is just a stylistic choice (and allowed in University creative writing classes, too! :D). Please, please, please review, especially if you want to tell me constructive criticism, because I've never written anything quite so experimental before (at least on this site). Just keep in mind that this is a form of prose poetry. Anyways, please let me know what you think :). And hopefully... enjoy!
When I'm Small
...
I am what she calls "safe" and to me I am what I call "waiting." In my diary I keep counting the days… I can't stop the cry that wants to come. I hold onto his first "sorry", the one meant for me. Does it hurt? No one has asked me that before.
I am still counting the days.
- Heidi W. Durrow, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
...
It's harder than it looks to makes yourself throw up.
At first, you'd think it's going to be easy. Like, just put your finger down your throat and voila!, you've emptied the contents of your stomach into the toilet.
But, really, it's difficult.
I discover this when I am twelve, after my mother gives her newly-designed dress to my best friend, and my boyfriend glances over me without a second thought – or any thought, really.
I go into the bathroom because everything is bottled up and maybe I need to be perfect.
But it takes a few times to get something to come up, and, even then, it's painful. Your salivary glands, they get swollen. The muscles in your neck strain and stretch, your abdomen is exhausted. The acids from your stomach burn your throat.
And once you hit your gag reflex, you can't stop. Even when you have nothing left to throw up.
I find all of this out when I'm twelve and nothing's right anymore.
I find all of this out because I need to control something. But every time I hit that gag reflex, I'm not really in control. It's an illusion, really, because my body reacts even when I wish it wouldn't. I control nothing.
Sometimes I wanted to think it would be different. Just one more time, one more pound.
I want to make something beautiful, I'd whispered, over and over again, to no one but my ghosts in the air.
...
What are you doing? he screams because it's scary for an infinite amount of reasons.
I can't stop, though, because I'd hit my gag reflex, and I'd been doing this for three years, now, and I know there's nothing that's going to be able to control my body for minutes. Especially me.
His eyes are huge, I know, in his face. I feel his hands against my back and my hair as he soothes me and holds my curls out of my face.
What are you doing? he whispers gently this time.
And I don't answer because I don't have to.
...
Serena finds out, a few weeks later. She sits with me and holds me.
We both cry.
...
Blair, my mother says. It's gentle and I'm scared and it makes me feel little. Small.
Bear, my dad says, taking me into his arms like I'm five years old again. I try not to cry.
You're going to get better, he tells me, as I press my nose into his chest. I remember his cashmere sweater and Yves St. Laurent cologne that I know isn't his.
I love you more than anything, Blair, he says.
And sometimes lies are easier than the truth.
...
The Ostroff Center is dark and devoid of the summer sun I crave from Paris or Monaco or The Hamptons or even Central Park.
Nate comes and bashfully says hello, awkwardly sits with me once. It doesn't look like a hospital but we both know it is.
Serena comes when she and Lily and Eric get back from Greece. She brings me bracelets. She's more tan and blond and thin and perfect than ever, and for once I find solace in Eric's dark eyes (from his father) and quiet smile.
My parents visit.
...
Dr. Sherman tells me that I'm compulsive.
That, I already knew.
...
Chuck sneaks me out, once, in July. July 13, at 2:36 in the afternoon. I remember this and I always will.
He takes me to Central Park and we feed the ducks. He buys me a lemonade and we sit on the Met steps. He puts a flower behind my ear with a gentle smile that I can only remember him giving me.
He buys me a red balloon. It's in the shape of a heart.
He takes me back to where I know I need to be, because I'm sick and I need to get better, though I will never admit this to anyone.
I don't tell him this but I don't have to.
He kisses my cheek and I cry.
I hold his balloon in my hand until I feel so light I might fly away.
I let it go out of my window that night.
I watch it float away where I wish I was and where my heart maybe is. Until I can't see it anymore.
...
I don't throw up for a while, after that. Until Thanksgiving.
I call Serena. And it's a two-way street even though people don't realize.
She saves me too.
...
Bulimia, Dr. Sherman tells me, never goes away. It's like diabetes or cancer, because you can go into remission and then relapse, time and time again.
Only, bulimia is a choice. I must choose to be healthy.
I must choose to love myself.
I swallow, because I've felt that way. In a limo.
I know what it feels like to have someone think I'm beautiful.
On my birthday, with his hands and the Erickson Beamon necklace and butterflies.
I let him do it again – let myself do it again – because it's when I feel right.
I love him and he saves me.
I don't tell him this but I don't have to.
...
For a year, I don't hurt myself.
He loves me too.
...
I'm twenty-two and it hurts.
I wake up and it's a real hospital this time.
He's holding my hand and his eyes are dark and shiny with tears.
I'm sick. This is what Dr. Sherman would call a relapse.
He doesn't ask it and I don't answer.
Neither of us has to.
(It's because of him this time.)
...
Eric, he visits me the most. It doesn't look like a hospital but we both know it is and also that we've been here before.
One day, he brings me The Girl Who Fell From the Sky.
It's cover is navy, and we listen to Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens as we read.
It's a beautiful book and sometimes I cry and sometimes he does too.
Blair, he whispers, one day.
Yeah?
You're killing yourself, he says seriously.
I bite my lip.
I know, he tells me. I know it hurts.
I nod, because it does.
He hugs me, Eric with his dark, soothing eyes. Let him love you, Blair, he says.
We have matching scars only mine are invisible.
...
I will never hurt you again, he pleads. And also commands himself.
I feel like Jane Eyre and also Edward Rochester's wife locked in the attic. Crazy and unworthy and confused and breaking. And loved.
And I want to be better and stop killing myself and also him, too.
I let him hold me. He pulls me together and also apart and I try not to cry as I give up.
Because I love him and I always will. Painfully and gently and sadly and without hope. And also perfectly.
It's the truth.
I don't tell him this but I don't have to.
...
It's a real hospital.
I want to make something beautiful, I remember saying.
And I had. We had.
She's perfect. She has hair like mine and eyes like his and lips that are more graceful than anything I've ever seen.
Her name is Evelyn.
I hold her small, warm body to my chest. She doesn't squirm, and her eyes close peacefully like she knows she's mine and she knows she's safe.
I know this is the truth because I feel this way too, because I snuggle into his chest as he sits, propped up, by me in my hospital bed.
He kisses the top of my hair and then his daughter's forehead. Asleep, even, she smiles.
I love you, he tells me and her. Both of us.
I'm happy and full and I want to cry because she's my daughter. And he's my husband and nothing has ever been this special before.
I cry and I know Chuck knows it means that I love him.
It's the truth.
He loves me and saves me.
I feel small and also infinite. And complete.
I don't tell him this but I don't have to.
AN : Anyone thinking, What was that? ! lol. Prose poetry is a crazy thing, friends. But I loved this piece, honestly. :) Anyways, please review or comment with any questions if you're confused as to style or (hopefully!) you're diggin' this awesome new thing I've got going on lol. Haha. Let me know, lovely people. Enjoy your Friday! :D