Wayside

Introduction: I am a fourteen-year-old patient in an eating disorders unit. The following poem is about moving on with my life, moving on from anorexia, returning to normality and the wish to join those who've kept on moving forwards while I've been stuck still. I hope you enjoy and please comment if this relates to you in any way...


WAYSIDE


I topple, I fall,
I cower, I crawl.
Will I ever escape the cold, vice grip?
After the first, the second hit,
Relentless, oppressive, keeps pushing me down,
Sigh, seconds past then a piercing sound.
My voice cries in pain. I'm one of a choir.
We suffer but care, we mind one another.
When the song comes to close, those who sing strong
Rise from the pews and continue along
The aisle, out the door to continue their tale
While those who are weak crouch under the veil
of ignorance, obsession, unreachable goals,
Stationary, static, their story untold,
Their book firmly shut, the dust gathers,
Their red rush halts, tumbles, crashes,
They float up the tower, so steep, so high,
And up off that steeple, they leap and die...


I do not wish to live veiled for all my time.
I wish for my life to have reason and rhyme.
So I lie in bed every morning and wait,
Wade through the hanging mist of self-hate
To hear the chirp, its winged words twitter proud,
In the hope that one day I'll sing that loud.
I'll rise from the pews,
Ignore that steeple,
Ride the waves,
Join the people.
I feel the need
To burn the veils,
Empty the church,
Tell all their tales.
But when you open that book
And you read alone,
You realize you're on your own.


"Burn your own veil
Ignore that dead
Feeling inside,"
I eagerly read.
I read the last chapter,
The page splattered red
And the following is what that wise book said
"Life moves on, a passing train,
you have a chance to board again."
The people I know and dearly love
have written more chapters and risen above,
they drive on, no image instilled in their mind
Of me crouched alone left on the wayside...