Sounds of life.

I biked down the hill high as a kite as I focused on the buildings in the distance.
I became paralyzed, shocked by the beauty of the city.
The blue of the sky
and the sounds of life – which had so often been blocked out by my eating disorder.
I listened to a bird flapping its wings above me, the sounds of cars
breaking, the innocent chatter of people passing by, and the sound of nature.
My biked moved me, my feet rested on the peddles -still.
The feeling lasted until I could see the black of my mailbox standing out against the brick.
I knew that inside the walls of my home, she hid.
She poked out behind cookies and chips in the cupboard, underneath the chocolate in my fridge
and shivered in depths of exotically flavoured icecreams in my freezer.
She had soon come out, and sat on the kitchen sink where I did the dirty work for her.
Pouring out feelings and thoughts. Stomach acid burning the corners of photographic memories, and eroding away at the part in my throat where my voice came out, and not hers.

I stood at the office door before I went home and let nervous words stumble
out of my mouth and into her ears.
This time last year I had depended on her so much, she was there at the hospital, and there for day long self-obsessed mini anxiety attacks that usually ended in threats of suicide.
I picked at the woodframe around the door as she talked to me about school.
‘You’re going to have to suck it up, baby.’
My stomach churned but I let out a laugh, like I really wasn’t nervous.
As I opened the door to leave I heard her shout back at me.
‘Make us proud!’
I biked home and stopped, watching the speeding cars go by.
A thought laced in cobwebs about riding head on into the cars entered my mind,
but I had to make someone proud.
I only had so much time left.