Lying in hospital, the lingering cable attached to the barbed bone of my wasting away body. It all begun with the word, "skinny". It's attached itself to me like a moth to a flame at the darkest hour at the dead of night. The battle I begun to win, although how do you win a battle against your own mind. It's simple, you don't. No one noticed until I was in a state of hibernation. I squat at the edge of my bed in the infirmary, a trail of thought run like a marathon constantly driven to triumph the assumed attempt to "end my life".
Minutes turning into hours and into day.... Weeks passed. No day easier than the previous.... Entrapped within a cage. I notice a label attached to my paper like wrists as I wake with the sun beaming through the fragile curtains, blinding me. In bold the label read, "Elisa John" Just a label. Is that what I am now, just a label? Labelled by society..... Anorexic.... I quite like it, it's better than the other way round isn't it?
Two years previously
"Elisa.... Foods ready!"
"Okay...Mum", the thought of ripping my throat open with a small dosage of food gave me and still does an endless thought of pain and agony. I slowly step foot out of my bedroom with a clear image of discomfort shown through my face.
"Elisa... hurry up we are waiting!!!" my mother screamed with annoyance, her voice as high as skyscrapers. I ran down stopped suddenly gawking at the dinner table, filled with an array of vegetables and meat. "Come on sit". I gradually took my place at the table.
I couldn't help but strain to speak the words came out in a soft tone, "Mother I am not..."I was rudely interrupted by my father, the man who stood approximately 15 stone in weight and 6ft exactly in height; the giant of the family we call him.
"Come on darling eat up" sluggishly straining to smile I managed to with unease and anxiety, pick up the metallic fork that was cold as the wind against my stick like fingers, stabbing into the one piece of broccoli that stared at me with its dark emerald eyes. It was the one thing I had control over, therefore I had to embrace it, dropping the fork to the dim coloured floor just as the head of the broccoli scrapped my lips. I got up and whimpered "I can't do it!" My mother and father gazed at me with annoyance.
"What? Elisa don't be silly, eat!" Father's voice spoke as rough as his beard. I was terrified of him. I looked at him and the food although my vision was blurred as the tears streamed down my bone binding face like acid. Sluggishly picking up my fork, I forced the broccoli down my throat, trying to ensure that I didn't gag it up in front of them.
"Father, I am done", this was a dangerous thing to mutter in the household as you would never know what words will follow. I sat back in triumph yet fear as he raised his head and looked directly into my shallow, blue eyes. "Have you now? Doesn't look like it" each word he said his voice would raise gradually until "I HAVE HAD AN ENOUGH OF YOUR SILLY LITTLE GAME" he stood up and picked up my plate picking. I felt my heart drop with a bang and he leant over the table and got a tight grasp of my tatty grey pyjamas. I was in one hand my plate in the other, mother sat there and didn't mutter or move an inch. My worst fear was happening, and I couldn't do anything.
"Choke on it!" slamming the plate on the wooden table he grabbed a carrot and pushed it down my throat. This is when my fragile mother stepped in "Alun, get your filthy hands off her!!!" she stood up but not as high as father, and he let go of me- my face red as dawn in the morning and tears streaming down. I gasped and gasped for air although it felt as though I was drowning in my own tears, falling back into my seat – I could see red.
