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I Do Not Remember Very Many Things From The Inside Out. I Do Not Remember What It Felt Like To Touch Things, Or How Bathwater Traveled Over My Skin. I Did Not Like To Be Touched, But It Was A Strange Dislike. I Did Not Like To Be Touched Because I Craved It Too Much. I Wanted To Be Held Very Tight So I Would Not Break. Even Now, When People Lean Down To Touch Me, Or Hug Me, Or Put A Hand On My Shoulder, I Hold My Breath. I Turn My Face. I Want To Cry.

-Marya Hornbacher

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I Do Not Remember

Marya Hornbacher

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I Do Not Remember Very Many Things From The Inside Out. I Do Not Remember What It Felt Like To Touch Things, Or How Bathwater Traveled Over My Skin. I Did Not Like To Be Touched, But It Was A Strange Dislike. I Did Not Like To Be Touched Because I Craved It Too Much. I Wanted To Be Held Very Tight So I Would Not Break. Even Now, When People Lean Down To Touch Me, Or Hug Me, Or Put A Hand On My Shoulder, I Hold My Breath. I Turn My Face. I Want To Cry.

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And So I Am Feeling Numb. It's A Curious Feeling, And I Get It All The Time. My Attention To The World Around Me Disappears, And Something Starts To Hum Inside My Head. Far Off, Voices Try To Bump Up Against Me, But I Repel Them. My Ears Fill Up With Water And I Focus On The Humming In My Head.

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There Is Never A Sudden Revelation, A Complete And Tidy Explanation For Why It Happened, Or Why It Ends, Or Why Or Who You Are. You Want One And I Want One, But There Isn't One. It Comes In Bits And Pieces, And You Stitch Them Together Wherever They Fit, And When You Are Done You Hold Yourself Up, And Still There Are Holes And You Are A Rag Doll, Invented, Imperfect. And Yet You Are All That You Have, So You Must Be Enough. There Is No Other Way.

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And Yet You Are All That You Have, So You Must Be Enough. There Is No Other Way.

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In Her Presence, I Was Reminded Again Of Why I Was An Anoretic: Fear. Of My Needs, For Food, For Sleep, For Touch, For Simple Conversation, For Human Contact, For Love. I Was An Anoretic Because I Was Afraid Of Being Human. Implicit In Human Contact Is The Exposure Of The Self, The Interaction Of The Selves. The Self I'd Had, Once Upon A Time, Was Too Much. Now There Was No Self At All. I Was A Blank.

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I Have A Type Of Bipolar That Swings Up And Down All Day Long. There Are Significant Mood Swings Within A Day, Within A Week, Within A Month. I Go Through At Least Four Major Episodes A Year. That's Really The Definition Of Bipolar Rapid Cycle. But I Have Ultra-rapid, So I Have Tiny Little Episodes All Day Long.

The Idea Of My Future Simultaneously Thrilled And Terrified Me, Like Standing At The Lip Of A Very Sheer Cliff- I Could Fly, Or Fall. I Didn't Know How To Fly, And I Didn't Want To Fall. So I Backed Away From The Cliff And Went In Search Of Something That Had A Clear, Solid Trajectory For Me To Follow, Like Hopscotch.

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Hatred Is So Much Closer To Love Than Indifference.

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...someone Speaks In Soft Tones To Me And Says I Am Psychotic, But It's Going To Be All Right. I Put On My Hat, Unperturbed, And Ask For Some Crayons.

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I Was Perpetually Grief-stricken When I Finished A Book, And Would Slide Down From My Sitting Position On The Bed, Put My Cheek On The Pillow And Sigh For A Long Time. It Seemed There Would Never Be Another Book. It Was All Over, The Book Was Dead. It Lay In Its Bent Cover By My Hand. What Was The Use? Why Bother Dragging The Weight Of My Small Body Down To Dinner? Why Move? Why Breathe? The Book Had Left Me, And There Was No Reason To Go On.

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The Madness Is There, And Will Always Be There. But It Will Keep Sleeping, As Long As I Don't Wake It Up.

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The Idea Began To Sink In, More Than It Ever Had, That I Might Be Crazy, In The Traditional Sense Of The Word. That I Might Be, Forever And Ever Amen, A Crazy Person. That's What We'd Suspected All Along, What I'd Been Working So Hard To Disprove, What Might Be True. I Preferred, By Far, Being Dead.

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Madness Is Not What It Seems. Time Stops. All My Life I've Been Obsessed With Time, Its Motion And Velocity, The Way It Works You Over, The Way It Rushes You Onward, A Pebble Turning In A Brook. I've Always Been Obsessed With Where I'd Go, And What I'd Do, And How I Would Live. I've Always Harbored A Desperate Hope That I Would Make Something Of Myself. Not Then. Time Stopped Seeming So Much Like The Thing That Would Transform Me Into Something Worthwhile And Began To Be Inseparable From Death. I Spent My Time Merely Waiting.

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Having A Normal Person Around Me Made It Poingnantly Clear To Me That I Was Out Of Control.

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And So I Went Through The Looking Glass, Stepped Into The Netherworld, Where Up Is Down And Food Is Greed, Where Convex Mirrors Cover The Walls, Where Death Is Honor And Flesh Is Weak. It Is Ever So Easy To Go. Harder To Find Your Way Back.

One Really Ought To Be Afraid Of Self-torture. But It Tempted Me. It Begged. The Dark Place That My Mind Was Fast Becoming Blends, In My Memory, With The Dark Womb Of Church: The Chant, The Fugue Of Prayer, The Strange Erotic Energy That Carving A Very Small Cross Into My Thigh With A Nail Had Brought.

But In Some Ways, The Most Significant Choices One Makes In Life Are Done For Reasons That Are Not All That Dramatic, Not Earth-shaking At All; Often Enough, The Choices We Make Are, For Better Or For Worse, Made By Default.

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Somewhere In The Back Of My Brain There Exists This Certainty: The Body Is No More Than A Costume, And Can Be Changed At Will. That The Changing Of Bodies, Like Costumes, Would Make Me Into A Different Character, A Character Who Might, Finally, Be Alright.

I Know For A Fact That Sickness Is Easier, But Health Is More Interesting.

You Can Only Whine For So Long. Then You Need To Get Your Life Back.

All Of Us Carry Around Countless Bags Of Dusty Old Knickknacks Dated From Childhood: Collected Resentments, Long List Of Wounds Of Greater Or Lesser Significance, Glorified Memories, Absolute Certainties That Later Turn Out To Be Wrong. Humans Are Emotional Pack Rats. These Bags Define Us.

In Our Absence, The Violet Early Evening Light Pours In The Bay Window, Filling The Still Room Like Water Poured Into A Glass. The Glass Is Delicate. The Thin, Tight Surface Of The Liquid Light Trembles. But It Does Not Break. Time Does Not Pass. Not Yet.

I Get Absolutely Shitfaced. I Am Shitfaced And Hyper And Ten Years Old. I Am Having The Time Of My Life.

Time Of My Life

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There Is, In Fact, An Incredible Freedom In Having Nothing Left To Lose.

Children Take In More Information Than We'd Like To Believe.

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He Leaned Down And Whispered To Me: No Matter How Thin You Get, No Matter How Short You Cut Your Hair, It's Still Going To Be You Underneath. And He Let Go Of My Arm And Walked Back Down The Hall.

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