erin reyes∞ d2wip

i lost my head in san francisco
waiting for the fog to roll out,
but i found it in a rain cloud.

Dear Diary,

The scale says that I weigh fourteen point three pounds less than I did two months ago. The point three is important, you see, every single bit of me waisting away is as important to keep track of, even if it’s just a bit of fat off my elbow, or a little slide of my pinky toe, it exists, therefore - it must matter? That’s what mister Thomas says, he says, “Erin, every single detail matters, no matter small or seemingly insignificant, it matters.” I don’t tell him about the dreams. Blissfully filling the knots and holes between my dying brain, clouds of dust and melancholy - last night I dreamt that I stood alone in a forest, the large oak trees towering above my feeble figure. Only, this time, I’m not fragile. Not pieced together with paper clips and tied with medical bracelets. Silver mist surrounds my celestial hands, I see every bit of dust in the cloud, count the particles, then count them again. Two hundred and thirty seven, point something, probably.

I can feel every bit of breeze trampling through my string-like hair, and I let it ride through me, a wave across a brisk sea line. For once, I am stable enough to withstand the waves. I wonder what it would be like to latch on to the trunks and climb so high that I can see the cities beyond me, shift into a bird and fly free, let my spaghetti arms topple and build crystalline feathers out of dream dust. Each on-coming predator I can hear, like their surrounding me, but I know that twenty six steps to the right is another man, his face shrouded, but he carelessly breaks twigs as he walks. To the left is a smaller boy, who trips over leaves, takes four steps at a time, and harshly takes a breathe. Striding forward, paws out front, clawing forward, sniffing the air, enveloping senses, the moon is out, I hear a howl to the right, the left, and my throat suffers it’s contagion, lifting up through harmonious howls - this morning I woke up to my mother clutching my arm, dry heaving, my cataclysmic coughs splattering blood spatters across her silk blouse, they said I was getting better, but I counted three loose threads lining her frightened arm.

Why do doctors lie?



Dear Diary,

I lost four point two more pounds bringing my total of thirty five days to eighteen point five, somewhere out there along the masonry walls sits bits of my skin cells carved in to stone. Strong and merciless, as tough as diamond, dark as coal - I am stronger when I am not attached to myself. They say that sometimes my dreams last for more than twelve hours, which to me is a miracle. I live in realms of dreams, but apparently, missing three more calendar days isn’t recommended. I thank mister Thomas for his recommendation, I know Mother takes it to heart when I at least acknowledge his treatments, but my head in six miles out west in the oak wood forest, toppling over broken branches, feasting on rabbits. I am four foot tall but reckless and merciless, there I am free. Here, I am confined.

Last night, I swear I saw a woman sneaking through the patterns of the wallpaper. Dancing gracefully to a melody that chanted through the triangle shapes, My mother, instead, saw it fit to braid my depleting hair - she latches on to lost hope like a star travelling across the nebula, but I have long since learn to let go to this mortal restriction. I live on an astral plane in my mind, setting forth through mud, trampling trotting, terrifying. I know she sobs as she lightly brushes through a once holden stream, the living river is long gone - replaced with burning crops of yellow. Meant to be rationed, not meant to be torn at, played with, soon enough it would be winter. And I suppose, when winter came, I would be prepared to walk down the endless corridor to light.

The gentle women in yellow winks at me, as if she knows my deepest secrets. I fear that she tell mother that every time I finally find a way to exit this, institution I run with wolves. But she says not a word, around her wrist is wrapped a bracelet with an intense likeness to mine, I notice this on the first connection. A patient, she must be, on the other side of the wall. Stuck beyond the yellow wallpapers that confine her. I watch her though, ever so tirelessly dancing through the long golden bars of the walls - she knows what she strives to be, forward thinking, free, she dances as if she knows what life beyond death might be. She might know, she might know.



Dear Diary,

There is an entire loaf of bread sitting in the corner running stale, Mother says it’s for a snack should I ever get hungry, she knows I never will be, I won’t get there - never will get hungry, I am fierce, I am determined, I will waste away. It’s been sitting there for three days now, I imagine it would be so stale that it would crunch and crumble, what a mess it would be.

What a mess am I?

I haven’t seen the girl in the wallpaper for days, I imagine she must have gotten out. Mother hasn’t let me look in a mirror for a few days, but I feel it, I know - she can try and hide things from me, but I can feel my own head. I know the once long strands were slowly crumbling and disappearing one by one, what am I to do? Eat, Erin. Eat.