Guide Me Home

I walk down the street my head low. I am freezing under a long sleeved thermal, two sweaters and a sweatshirt. It’s barely September and I am freezing.

I stare at the sidewalk afraid to look into the eyes of people. I know what they say behind my back. I feel what they say about me when I leave the room:

Poor little Lucas couldn’t keep up. My God have you seen him he’s so...small.... He needs help....

They insult me, every word jabbing my skin like needles; small but painful.

* * *

In the classes I am a poster child because I feel off the boat and drowned trying to get back on.....
* * *

Teenage girls with scars on their fingers glare at me and mom’s always shove chocolaty chip gooey cookies in my face (“It taste the best when its fresh out the oven”) I’d like to tell them it also taste best coming up.

The sidewalk guides me towards the bookstore so I can get lost in fiction and climb my puffy cheesecake fingers through stars and witches and magical fairy dust and dusty magical fairies.

Some days if I had enough energy I’d freeze my self between fiction and non-fiction and watch what happens next.....

Sidewalks used to be perfection but somehow along the way it crackcrack crackedunder pressure. Poor little Lucas couldn’t keep up it says. Too much weight it groans. I skip every other s q u a r e towards the bookstore.

I’m suppose to meet Brian here-the only guy whose liked me fat and jiggily and wobbly with cellulite.

I take a quick look around the bookstore- it smells like new paper and crisp words and starbucks. I don’t look long because I don’t like the expressions people are giving me.

I can hear their thoughts because I am an empty car running on an empty tank. I guzzled zero gas today. (= O)

It’s so sad...why doesn’t he...just look at him....feel bad...poor kid...such a shame...starving kids everywhere and he's.....selfish...

As I make my way towards the fiction section I stare at a teenager sucking down her vanilla latte and texting on her phone. I wonder who she’s talking to and if they are funny or nice or take her out on Sundays and buy her flowers and calls her pretty/beautiful/amazing/sexy. I wonder who she’ll go home to- a sexy male model or a faithful poet. I say both a sexy faithful poet. I wonder if she goes to birthday parties and lets the icing sit on her tongue before she eats it, savoring it, tasting it, loving it. I wonder if she does the same with her life.

The smell of a cold vanilla bean with extra sticky tasty Carmel topped with whipped cream and a warm banana nut muffin with extra nuts is doing this to me. I want one so bad I would cut off my leg.

No. Zero calories, zero calories. Empty is strong, strong is empty, empty is strong, strong is empty.....

I quickly exit the bookstore to go exercise.

I am so tired I want to pass out. I am so tired I want to drop dead. I hurt everywhere. All over. My feet hurt, my ankles, my collar bones, my hands, arms, legs, calf’s, ribs, abs, shoulders, neck.

An hour and thirty minutes on the treadmill and I want to drop dead. I am so weak I love it, because when I am weak I am a winner.

When Brian comes home I am on smoking fire. Burned 409 cals. I am a winner. Somehow our heater doesn’t want to listen to me and thus will not let me make it any hotter. I am so cold my teeth are shattering.

“Babe! It’s like an oven in here! Jeez!” Brian calls as he comes through the front door. My heart is doing that crazy thing again where it S K I P S B E A T S. and makes all the wires in my brain and body move insuper slow motion.

It takes me ten minutes to get from the couch to the kitchen. If it’s possible I think I got colder. I steady my hand on the counter. The room is spinning, Brian who is placing his scarf and jacket on the counter is spinning, and the refrigerator is spinning. They are all conspiring against me to get me to faint. But I won’t.

“I get that its winter and all but you don’t have to keep it a hundred and ten in her—” He cuts off mouth agape, wide eyed staring at me.

Uh oh. I’m still in my workout clothes-tank top and shorts- he hasn’t seen me this naked and fat and exposed in months. We don’t do the whole sex thing anymore. He freaks out because he can “feel my ribs” I freak out because I can’t.

It’s silent for a while and I can hear the machine grinding it’s gears in his head. Working up something to say, to get me to eat or maybe he’ll start a fight. I know he won’t but I wish he will.

“I’m making tomato soup.” He insist heading towards the pantry.

“No.” I won’t eat it. Iwon’teatitIwon’teatit, I swear to God I won’t eat it.

Tomato soup is thick and reminds me of blood and one cup of tomato soup is =(101) Yuck.

He stays silent and takes out the tomato soup anyway. The battle hangs in the air: Eat. No. Please. No. For me, I love you just eat. No. God damn it Lucas, It won’t hurt you, just eat the damn food. NO!

While he cooks the food I’m not eating I slip back into the living room, on the beige couch we bought when we were a strong unbreakable healthy couple. I slide under the covers and close my eyes.

Someone is shaking me awake because I’m screaming. Who is this person? Where am I? Why am I screaming, what’s my name? What is this place?

One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight.... Nine....Ten...

It takes me a while to get my engine rebooted. It takes even longer for the black spots to disappear and for everything to come into view. But my heart is still S K I P I N G B E A T S.

Brian has this worried/horrified expression on his face and is really pale. I think he thought I was dead. So do I.

* * *
After Brian forced me to eat theblood tomato soup. After he goes to bed, after my parents in California stay up too late watching old movies but then fall asleep. After half this whole town falls asleep. I am the only one awake burning off my mistakes on the treadmill, all 101 of it.

I stand in front of the mirror wishing it could make me prettier, slimmer, thinner. I grab a straight razor I hid under the sink, pull up my shirt and draw four evenlies lines under my left rib.

In middle school they tell you go for it, be all you can be, the sky is your fucking limit. In high school they say take this seriously be successful! Well by high school you know where you stand. He was the smartest, she was the prettiest, he was the coolest, she’s an awesome dancer, and man, can he play that guitar.

I wasn’t good at sports, I couldn’t play an instrument for my life, I was an average student and never “applied” myself, and I wasn’t handsome like the other guys, and I tripped and stumbled over my coolness.

But there was one thing I heard a lot; “You’re so skinny! Man you’re like a twig! How do you do it! If you’d turn sideways I’d bet you disappear!”

I used to have friends, we would laugh and talk and double date and play games and drink and party and live. I used to live.

Brian tells me my mother called. I nod and say I’ll call her back. We both know I’m lying. I love my mother I do but when I talk to her I want to scream. She’s so blind it’s sickening she couldn’t even see...

“Lucas!” Brian shouts snapping his fingers in my face.

“Yes”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.” No.

“Okay so you agree to do that thing for me on Friday?” He asks staring into my eyes. I wish I knew what he’s looking for.

And what thing on Friday, what is he talking about?

“S-sure, whatever, you want.” I say pecking him on the cheek he hugs me quickly and smiles as he exits the apartment.He didn’t hug me for a long time because he can’t stand my fat and thinks I’m ugly.

I walk towards the bathroom, stand in front of the mirror and stare. I stare into my eyes, once upon a time ago my mother would tell me I had dancing eyes and I could light up a room. I stare into those eyes now and all I see is darkness. Nothing. I can smile on cue and laugh but my eyes will always be dead. I’m like one of those horses who have been in the business for too long and anyone but the trainer can see that the horse is tired and rundown but the trainer keeps pushing him. Or one of those robots who keeps malfunctioning..... always broken never fixed....

I can look in a mirror and not see the blurry boy on the other side. I see his fat and his hatred and feel his pain and sorrow. But I have no Idea who that boy is. Who is Lucas Thomas? Who steers my boat if it’s abandoned?

And how in the hell did I become shipwrecked, stranded without a survival kit. How did I become so lost.......?

Fat...ugly...too fat...they are laughing at you...come on ten more pounds...fifteen and you’ll float on a cloud...twenty and you’ll be in the clouds....don’t eat that... it’s posoin..100 cals...75...60...34...25...burn em off burn em off.... you can do it... how many pounds till I am thinner, three more pounds and I win!....you’ll never be good enough or look good enough!.....once on the lips twice on the hips...go jog fatass....you’ll never beat the scale...numbers, numbers, numbers it’s all about theNUMBERS!.......fatty!... Ha! Who do you think you’re fooling!

I slam my hand through the mirror watching it demolish in front of my eyes, like my life. I want it to shut up. I want it to go away.

I want my throat to stop burning and my heart to stop skipping beats, I want to eat Ice cream and fruit loops and popcorn with extra butter, I want to laugh, I want to love, I want to live, I want to protest, I want to explore, I want to drink and party, I want tell jokes to my friends, I want to live and play in the snow and smile.

Because I get it, okay I get the stupid message the mirror wants me to painfully know that I've resorted to anorexia because I'm not happy with the way I look.

As the blood trails down my arm, broken glass still in it I walk towards Brian’s room to borrow a sweater. I spot something flashing on his screen.

Calendar update.

Friday: Lucas = Therapist